By international standards, many of the U.K.'s policies for civil society are exemplary. However, there are concerns about constraints on civil liberties - particularly restrictions on free assembly and about the rising tide of everyday regulation has seriously impeded community activity - from organising street parties to helping children.

With a fractured sense of self, we come to depend on what people feed back to us - often mediated through social networks - not what we are. We have complex identities but may become less able to act as a subject - confident in what we really are.

As with products on supermarket shelves, the public has a right to know where their financial products and services come from.

A tablet replacing an exercise book is not innovation, it's just a different way to make notes.

I can think of nothing worse than a think-tank where everybody agreed.

Courses can, and should, incorporate the excitement and fun of programming games, apps or even real digital devices.

The once-science-fiction notion of hyper-connectivity - where we are all constantly connected to social networks and other bubbling streams of digital data - has rapidly become a widespread reality.