Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens?

There were never any doctors in my family. But my grandparents and my mother had a strong social conscience that was formative.

The trouble with climate change is it's an extraordinarily diverse and complex issue, but for example if the BBC would let me make some of the programmes I'd like to make on climate change, I bet you there would be a change of emphasis.

However pragmatic you are, it is very demanding being a new parent.

It's extraordinary to think that if you walked into a room and said you had never heard of Hamlet, you would be regarded as a Philistine. But you could walk into the same room and say, 'I don't know what a proton is,' and people would just laugh and say, 'Why should you know?'

Whether you're religious or not, there is a real need for other people's religious positions to be treated with the upmost respect.

Surgeons always underestimate the pain and disability involved in what they do to people.