Start the Week - 11/05/2009

Journalist and campaigner David Akinsanya spent his childhood in care, waiting in vain to be adopted. He argues that foster care is not always the right answer for some children and calls for investment in small residential children's homes. His remarks come as statistics for children taken into care show a sharp increase. AS Byatt's latest novel looks at fairy tales. Against the backdrop of the Arts and Crafts movement, she questions the motives of the people who write children's stories. Journalist Peter Hitchens calls for an end to the labels Left and Right in politics, suggesting they are outdated and stifle true political debates. Historian Richard Overy argues that there are many parallels between the looming sense of apocalypse that characterised the 1930s and today.