The Observer panel

In 2007, my alter ego is resolved to...

It's New Year, so we have asked our panellists to assume the identity of a public figure and make some resolutions
Karol Sikora is Patricia Hewitt, Health Secretary
I'm going to tell you the truth about the NHS. It's a reasonably fair insurance policy, but it can't provide all the latest wizardry regardless of cost. There is a limit, after which it will go bust. You'll have to take responsibility for your health. If you want something the NHS thinks is not worth the money, you'll have to pay for it. But I'll ensure that what it does is equitable and not based on where you live or your ability to argue with a clerk. Efficiency, responsiveness and consumerism in a competitive marketplace will change you from being service users into valued customers.

· Karol Sikora is a leading cancer specialist

Mary Warnock is the Archbishop of Canterbury
I shall make two New Year's resolutions. First, I resolve to buy a good razor and learn to shave. Then I will look less like a mad druid and more like the human being that I am. Second, I resolve to hire a live-in copy editor and have him constantly at my elbow when I speak and especially when I write.

This person will keep an ongoing check on my intelligibility, asking me questions such as: 'Could you put that more simply?'; 'Wouldn't a full stop here help?'; 'What is the point you are trying to make?'; or simply: 'Come again?'

· Mary Warnock is a philosopher

Barbara Gunnell is Hillary Clinton, presidential hopeful
Make or break year. I must be very, very nice, especially to Barack Obama who is inexperienced in politics (remind media of this often); make sure everyone knows of my Baptist roots and be understanding about Barack's Congregationalism. I need a core message. How about 'Bush Clinton Bush Clinton - it's the natural order!'? I could have an affair and brazenly deny it, which didn't hurt Bill. Condoleezza is worth studying: the effortless prim superiority. Can I be prim and down-home? I must visit Mississippi, often. And never talk policies.

· Barbara Gunnell is associate editor of the New Statesman

Sunder Katwala is Gordon Brown, Prime Minister in waiting
I resolve to use the office of Prime Minister to champion an end to child poverty within a generation. I will use my spending review to focus all government departments on this priority - increasing support for families and narrowing inequalities in health and education. But this cannot be achieved by government alone. I will work with campaigners, charities and all parties in a broad social movement which challenges the idea that there is no real poverty in Britain, so that 'Making Child Poverty History at Home' becomes a cause for our age.

· Sunder Katwala is general sectary of the Fabian Society

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