On Start the Week Andrew Marr asks how far scientific evidence can influence the political agenda. Professor David Nutt is a respected researcher working in the field of drugs, but is best known as the government advisor who was sacked by the Home Secretary for comparing the risks of horse-riding with taking ecstasy. He argues for a rational debate on drugs policy based on objective evidence. Mark Henderson despairs that this will never happen while only one of our 650 MPs is a scientist. But the former Labour minister, David Blunkett, defends his profession, arguing that even evidence-based policy must take into account public opinion and perception. And for former No. 10 advisor Jill Rutter evaluates the evidence for and against. Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - WWII with Antony Beevor and Max Hastings
On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses how World War II still grips the public imagination. No other period in history has presented greater dilemmas for both leaders and ordinary people, and in two sweeping accounts Max Hastings and Antony Beevor discuss the power politics at play, ideological hypocrisy, egomania, betrayal and self-sacrifice. Juliet Gardiner discusses how military history has been largely replaced by social history, as the lives of those who lived through war and its aftermath take centre stage. And for this year's Reith Lectures, Niall Ferguson questions whether the Western world, in the aftermath of WW2 and the Cold War, has become so in thrall to its institutions of democracy and the rule of law that it can no longer find solutions to today's crises. Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - Grayson Perry at the Charleston Festival
In a specially recorded edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr is at the Charleston Festival with Grayson Perry, Virginia Nicholson, Faramerz Dabhoiwala and Janice Galloway. As the home of Vanessa Bell, Virginia Nicholson's grandmother, Charleston was a by-word for sexual freedom and the Bohemian lifestyle. But Dabhoiwala insists that far from the 1920s being the time of real sexual revolution, that honour goes to the 18th century, the origin of our modern attitudes to sex. Janice Galloway brings the story up-to-date as she relives her adolescence in small town Scotland in the 1970s. And the celebrated potter Grayson Perry explores changing social attitudes in relation to taste: the choices people make in the things they buy and wear, and uses these details of modern life to create six tapestries, called 'The Vanity of Small Differences'. Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - Thomas Heatherwick on design and architecture
On Start the Week Andrew Marr goes in search of ancient landscapes with the writer Robert Macfarlane. With a mix of geology, cartography and natural history, Macfarlane journeys on foot to explore ideas of pilgrimage, trespass and ancient pathways. Jonathan Meades is equally preoccupied with a sense of place, but turns his attention to its architecture and the futility of landmark buildings. Anna Minton argues against the increasing privatisation of public space. And size is no matter to the designer Thomas Heatherwick - from a new London double decker, to a bridge that curls up and a handbag made from zips - he always has the human scale in mind. Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - Michael Sandel on Money and Morality
On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses the relationship between markets and morals with the political philosopher Michael Sandel. In his latest book, What Money Can't Buy, Sandel questions the dominance of the financial markets in our daily lives, in which everything has a price. But the economist Diane Coyle stands up for her much maligned profession, and points to the many benefits of a market economy. The Russian economist Grigory Yavlinksy argues against viewing the world of money as separate from culture and society: he believes the financial crisis was merely a symptom of a wider moral collapse, and that it is time to examine the way we live.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - Spain in Crisis
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.
Start the Week - The Digital Future
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.
Start the Week - Creativity: Jonah Lehrer
On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses creativity with the writer Jonah Lehrer. In his latest book, Imagine, Lehrer unpicks the creative process in both science and art, to ask where inventiveness and imagination spring from, and how they can be harnessed. Experimental sound artist, Scanner, talks about creating unique musical compositions and his latest collaboration with the Heritage Orchestra at the Brighton Festival; and the novelist Joanna Kavenna considers the importance of nourishing creative ideas in writing fiction. She argues that everyone is born creative, although as we get older this innate imaginative ability is often suppressed or side-lined. Finally, the chemist, Rachel O'Reilly, explains the importance of the creative process in scientific research and how blue-sky thinking aids developments in nano-materials and technology.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - Iain Banks and David Hare
On St George's Day Andrew Marr discusses national identity and belonging. The playwright David Hare has written a companion piece to a Terrence Rattigan play, set in an English public school. George Benjamin is celebrated as one of England's leading composers, but how far is his work shaped by the French musical tradition? The Scottish writer Iain Banks discusses his novel, Stonemouth, set in a town north of Aberdeen and vividly evoking a sense of place and identity. And Rachel Seiffert examines what happens when an Ulster girl marries a Glaswegian boy, in her latest short story, Hands Across the Water.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Start the Week - China
Andrew Marr discusses the state of China with the authors Jonathan Fenby and Martin Jacques. Fenby attempts to draw together the whole of the China story to explore its global significance, but also its inner complexity and complexes. Martin Jacques has updated his bestseller, When China Rules the World, to argue that the country's impact will be as much political and cultural, as economic. But while China's finances make all the headlines, what of its literature? Ou Ning edits China's version of Granta magazine, showcasing the work of contemporary Chinese authors, but must tread a careful path to keep the right side of the censors. And the academic and translator Julia Lovell argues that to understand the new spirit of China, it's vital to read its often contrarian short fiction. Producer: Katy Hickman.