Month: May 2012

On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses Spain's economic crisis, and the legacy of Franco. In the last decade Spain has begun to unearth some of the mass graves of the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed in the 1930s by both sides in the civil war. Paul Preston discusses what he calls the Spanish Holocaust and its impact on Spain today. Maria Delgado argues that the significance of Franco's reign transcends politics, and can be felt strongly in Spain's cultural landscape. The MEP Daniel Hannan sees the country's strong support for Europe as the legacy of repression following the civil war, but believes that its present financial crisis would be eased by rejecting the euro. While the economist Iain Begg discusses Spain's problems within the wider Eurozone and the effect of political changes in France and Greece. Producer: Katy Hickman.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks into the digital future. Nick Harkaway dismisses fears of a digital dystopia in which distracted people, caught between the real world and the screen world, are under constant surveillance. He believes we need to engage with the computers we have created, and shape our own destiny. Simon Ings is the editor of a new digital magazine, Arc, which uses science fiction to explore and explain what the future might hold for society. While Anab Jain's design company uses scenarios and prototypes to probe emerging technologies and ideas, from headsets to help the blind to see, to everyday objects with their very own internet connection. And Charles Arthur investigates the battle for dominance of the internet with Apple, Google and Microsoft struggling to stay on top, and asks what that means for the rest of us. Producer: Katy Hickman.