James Plunkett

Director of Policy, Resolution Foundation

As the prime minister and leading commentators have been fond of pointing out - and rightly so - employment is now back to pre-crisis levels, making this one of the few economic indicators not keeping the Chancellor up at night. Yet step back from a narrow focus on the number of people in work and the challenge we face on employment is daunting.

Henry Smith MP

Member of Parliament for Crawley

Emergency medical treatment should of course always be provided to those who require it at the point of need without exception. Beyond that, entitlement to free healthcare is considerably more generous to visitors and short-term residents than is reciprocated for UK citizens abroad and our system is the most liberal, and lax, than anywhere else in the world.

Hussein Kesvani

History student, Deputy Political editor of Nouse

Oh how the mighty have fallen... well not exactly. The EU's latest proposal to cap banker's bonuses at base rate wasn't exactly the Cleansing of the Temple, despite what Mayor of London Boris Johnson might think.

Harry Cooper

A Brussels-based Brit

I will caveat everything I say here by owning up to the unfashionable fact that I am a Conservative Party member and work for a Conservative politician. The sad reality is that the Conservative Party is out of date and out of touch with the majority of the British population, as exhibited by the recent debate on gay marriage... The error that the apparatchiks of the party hierarchy are making is that they think mimicking Ukip's manifesto will make the Tories loveable. This is ridiculous.

Jawad Yaqub

Enterprise Architect with 20 years in the industry who currently runs and owns Razormind worldwide

Nigel Farage was quipping that the Tories split the UKIP vote in Eastleigh - ouch. With the recent decline of the BNP and soon to be expired incarceration of the EDL leader Stephen Lennon - their masses of frustrated followers have found their mouthpiece in Farrage.

Jonny Mulligan

Observer of Politics, Social Innovation and CSR

The Legal aid Bill gave the coalition government the most defeats of any bill in parliament for the last sixty years. In the end government only won by one vote in the house of Lords. A vote they would not have had if Lord Newton was still around to vote.

Mehdi Hasan

Political director of The Huffington Post UK

To remove Ed Balls from the post of shadow chancellor would deprive the opposition of its most accomplished macroeconomist - and its fiercest attack dog. It would also be an act of supreme cowardice, not strength, on the part of Ed Miliband. Like Tony Blair and Gordon Brown before him, the Labour leader would be dancing to the tunes of the right-wing media echo chamber - the Dacres, the Desmonds, the Murdochs.

Dr Prateek Buch

Director, Social Liberal Forum

Coming days after RBS announced a £607m bonus pool to "reward" staff for losses of £5bn, Boris' defence of the banking industry is in itself deluded - and as far as the UK economy is concerned, self-defeating.

Jonny Mulligan

Observer of Politics, Social Innovation and CSR

The left has moved so far to the centre we have three parties of professional politicians who have little emotional or intellectual connection with the electorate. The electorate have very few options.

Rachel Baird

Senior Policy and Campaigns Journalist at Christian Aid

We knew that people felt strongly about tax evasion and avoidance - but the results of our latest opinion poll still shocked us. The survey, in which ComRes questioned 2,270 British adults, found that one in three people (34 per cent) say they are currently boycotting the products or services of a company which doesn't pay its fair share of UK tax. In London, this rises to 44 per cent.

Tim Bale

Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University

The sensible advice to the Tories after Eastleigh is, of course, 'Don't Panic'. The problem, however, is they already have. Indeed, they've been panicking about Ukip for well over a year now - which is precisely why they've ended up in this mess in the first place.

Iain Anderson

Director, Cicero

Small political earthquake in Hampshire - that's that tone of much of the commentary about the Eastleigh by election on Friday. And it's fair comment too. So what are the key lessons from the poll? I believe there are four.

Paul Holmes

Candidate for National Chairman of Conservative Future. Parliamentary Advisor to Transport Minister Stephen Hammond MP. Former Southampton City Council Cabinet Member

I joined the Conservatives because I want to spread the message of aspiration in all parts of the UK. I've done that for Conservative Future, as a councillor and for an MP. I see this role as leading by example and with a clear vision; for that we need the right people, with the right principles and the right policies to drive us onwards and upwards.

Dave Clements

Reflections on a big society that keeps getting smaller

These rebranded community 'hubs' are teeming with activity that is hardly conducive to book-related endeavours at all. Between the parents with their gaggles of noisy kids, support groups and 'stalls' of all things, not to mention the so-called students getting on my bloody nerves chatting on their mobiles - God I sound old - libraries just aren't libraries any more.

Julian Dobson

Writer and commentator on cities, towns and social policy

Look at the maps of England and many of the towns that once produced the nation's wealth now have the highest rates of unemployment and reliance on public services.

Adrian Ash

Head of research at BullionVault

Negative interest rates are the latest balloon floated by the Bank of England.