With Tory privatisations in the past we've seen how service users can end up losing out and getting a raw deal.

Shopping in the future can become an experience where conventional retailers can complement the success of online retailing. Government needs to work in partnership with the sector to help make this a reality.

More and more department stores are acting as the shop window for a range of retailers now, using space more efficiently to recreate the feel of the local market, creating new market opportunities for the small and the niche.

There are retailers successfully combining conventional and online retail, like Argos or John Lewis.

Requiring fund managers to disclose how they vote would increase accountability and mean that pensioners and ordinary investors would more easily be able to see how those acting on their behalf vote on all issues, including remuneration.

One way to promote shareholder engagement and activism is through greater accountability and transparency.

While we are clear that it is right that those who work hard, generate wealth and create jobs for our country are rewarded, where failure is rewarded or people award themselves huge pay rises that bear no relation to performance or what their companies can bear, trust is severely undermined.

Excessive pay and rewards for failure are bad for shareholders, the economy and society.

We have a really rich and diverse heritage in my family - but I sometimes felt it was a bit of a chain round my neck in the Labour party if truth be told.

I have quite a different background from a lot of people in the Labour party - I'm of mixed heritage.

My father was a black, working-class man who arrived here with no money in his pocket from Nigeria; my mum came from more of a middle-class background, whose father had prosecuted the Nazis at Nuremberg.

If truth be told, certainly culturally, I never felt totally comfortable in the Labour party, because I've never really been a massively tribal politician.

A prerequisite to the inclusive prosperity that will increase equality and reduce poverty is growth. This requires an innovative economy in which productive businesses, the state and citizens work together to create wealth and ensure that globalisation works for many more people.

Part of the reason young people are getting involved with gangs, leading to the use of guns and knives, is not the lack of stop and search but the individualistic, consumerist society we live in.

Too often, politicians fail to relate what they advocate to the kind of society they want to build, or they dress up policy in rhetoric which belies their actual intention. Meanwhile Joe Public is left wondering what on earth this bunch are all about and how their vision of a good society differs from that of the other lot.

My dad was this pint-sized Nigerian with an oversized personality. My mother is a tall six foot something Irish-English woman. Us walking down the street was quite an unusual sight, when I was growing up.

Leaving Labour was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do and it was not a cause of jubilation or happiness. I did it with great sadness, but you have to put the country first.

In an age of globalisation, investment and good jobs increasingly flow to cities and regions with distinctive strengths and specialisms. These cannot be built up from Whitehall. They require local expertise, knowledge and dedication.

Getting from A to B can be crucial for small-business owners, self-employed people and freelancers too, who often rely on trains and buses to get around, conduct business and meet clients.

Ukip has policies including cutting taxes for the wealthy and putting them up for everyone else, charging people to see their GP, or taking away maternity rights.

I spent many hours slaving away, day and night, bleary eyed, on multi-million pound takeovers, mergers and acquisitions, and the rest. It could sound glamorous (especially when it involved overseas travel) but often it wasn't partly because, as a lawyer, you were not the one calling the shots.

To be concerned about immigration and the economy is not racist, but I do think there is a virus of racism that runs through Ukip.

Screaming 'you're wrong' at the electorate is not a good strategy for a party seeking to win back its trust.

Look, politics can be tough.