The Bunker
Your daily Need To Know on news and politics. Every morning The Bunker cuts through the noise to make sense of what’s really going on, with smart explainers, interviews, fresh perspectives and under-reported stories to rescue you from everyday Punch and Judy news coverage. It’s the only way to start the day. From the producers of Oh God, What Now?
Our regulars include: Alex Andreou • Gavin Esler • Hannah Fearn • Andrew Harrison • Jacob Jarvis • Marie le Conte • Jude Rogers • Yasmeen Serhan • Ahir Shah • Siân Pattenden • Ros Taylor.
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The Bunker is a Podmasters production.
1151
Will we be OK? Facing the Climate Emergency
Could there be cause for optimism on climate change? Do individuals have power over our planet’s future? Paul Behrens, author of new book The Best Of Times The Worst Of Times, tells Ros Taylor about the best and worst climate scenarios, why women’s rig...
22 min
1152
Lockdown: The Sequel
As COVID cases are back on the rise another lockdown looks likely, but has the Government blown its pandemic response? And how will Britain react to an autumn trapped indoors? Plus, following a scathing report by the Public Accounts Committee, is the H...
47 min
1153
Testing Times: Dr DAN POULTER MP on Britain’s C...
COVID has developed from a short-term emergency into a public health crisis that could define the next half century. As Lockdown II looms, Conservative MP Daniel Poulter, former junior Health Minister and chair of the the All Party Parliamentary Group ...
18 min
1154
Power Chords: TOM MORELLO of Rage Against The M...
Rage Against The Machine’s TOM MORELLO is one of the most charismatic and energising figures in rock’n’roll and politics. He tells Dorian Lynskey about the role of radicalism in rock, protofascism, AOC, Trump, the Presidential Election, cancel culture,...
22 min
1155
Nudge dread: Does Behavioural Science really work?
Can we really guide and control human activity by constructing networks of carrots, sticks and semi-invisible hints? Behavioural science AKA “nudge” is key to the UK Government’s COVID response yet, as tech journalist and sceptic Andrew Orlowski says, ...
17 min
1156
Street Life: Why Britain’s homeless need their ...
There’s an unseen epidemic of people dying while homeless, and journalist MAEVE McLENAGHAN tells their stories in No Fixed Abode: Life and Death Among the UK's Forgotten Homeless, out this week. She tells Dorian Lynskey what she learned, how there...
25 min
1157
The Infernal Market Bill
Boris Johnson wants to blow up the Brexit talks with an Internal Market Bill that shatters international law. Will it blow up in his face?And on the six-month anniversary of Britain locking down for the first time, we’re joined by Miatta Fahnbulleh ...
52 min
1158
At War in the Information Battlespace
Digital disinformation from hostile powers is attacking our democracies, but do our politicians even want to stop it? Disinformation expert, security specialist and former US intelligence officer MATTHEW FERRARO talks to Nina Schick about the evolving ...
21 min
1159
Learning from the Germans: SUSAN NEIMAN on how ...
What can you do when your society is responsible for racist atrocities? What should you do? One country trying to atone for their past is Germany. Susan Neiman, moral philosopher and author of ‘Learning from the Germans’, told Ros Taylor about what the...
28 min
1160
Khanspiracies: AMIL KHAN on our post-truth COVI...
According to recent polls, half of Britain would not trust a COVID vaccine, and a majority of Republican voters in the US believe in the bizarre QAnon theory. So why are these crazy notions becoming so widespread? Political communications specialist AM...
27 min
1161
Just Walk Away, Renege? DAVID ALLEN GREEN on Br...
As the Government tears up its own promises on Northern Ireland with its Internal Markets Bill, the don of legal experts David Allen Green explains the enormity of this breach of international law, why the Government has provoked constitutional crisis ...
17 min
1162
Fall backwards: Johnson's tricky autumn
After a summer filled with u-turns and policy failures galore, and with the road to 2021 looking incredibly treacherous, will Boris survive the Autumn? Plus, did Extinction Rebellion undermine their cause by blocking everyone’s Saturday papers being de...
50 min
1163
Shot in the arm: Professor HEIDI LARSON on the ...
A vaccine is seen as the primary route out of the COVID19 crisis, but only half of Brits surveyed by Kings College London say they would be likely to get one. Professor HEIDI LARSON, director of The Vaccine Confidence Project, tells Ros Taylor the reas...
21 min
1164
Pandemic Stations: DR DOMINIC PIMENTA talks lif...
Coronavirus has changed life as we know it, especially for those who work in our health service. Dr Dominic Pimenta resigned from the NHS over Dominic Cummings’ lockdown trip to Durham, and his new book ‘Duty of Care’, describes the brutal experience o...
30 min
1165
Can’t see the wood OR the trees: Prof SIMON LEW...
Last week the Government introduced legislation aiming to curb the ruinous practice of deforestation, but how will this fit in with Brexit trade policy? What more should the Government be doing on environmental matters? And how damaging have populists ...
24 min
1166
Donald’s Trump Card: Could the President secure...
With the polls seemingly stacked against him, what dirty tactics will Donald Trump need to deploy if he’s to triumph in November’s election? And what will his victory, or demise, mean for the Western world? UCL Politics Professor Dr Julie Norman joins ...
50 min
1167
Johnson on the couch: RAFAEL BEHR talks politic...
What is an obsession with politics doing to our psychology – and vice versa? Which weird psychology drives the Johnson Government’s mix of belligerence and incompetence? The Guardian’s Rafael Behr talks to Ian Dunt about the deep, unconscious ...
29 min
1168
Scrambled Breggxit: DANIEL ZEICHNER MP on the t...
On top of COVID, a No Deal Brexit could push Britain’s already dire food poverty situation into crisis. And if we fall onto a Global Tariff for foodstuffs it will mean drastically limited kitchen staples and increased prices all round. The Shadow Food,...
26 min
1169
Blue-Sky Drinking: The future of BEER with PETE...
We were living in a golden age of craft beer… and then COVID hit. Will the pandemic tally wound Britain’s independent beer makers? Or are government ignorance and Big Brewing more of a threat to this life-enhancing industry? Britain’s leading beer writ...
23 min
1170
Fear and Trumping in North Carolina – Make Amer...
As Republicans gather (virtually) to anoint the Great Helmsman, how will Trump’s warnings of an American apocalypse play outside his radicalised base? UCL Global Politics professor Brian Klaas and The Atlantic’s Yasmeen Serhan join us to decide who’s t...
53 min
1171
The Great Health Data Grab: How COVID privatise...
The COVID pandemic has given unscrupulous data traffickers the opportunity they needed to hoover up vast quantities of private patient data, with Government connivance – and often with Government funding. Investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed ...
27 min
1172
“Parliament is a breeding ground for bullying”:...
Bullying and sexual harassment are a blight on Parliament – and Westminster has been slow to deal with it. Cofounder of Women in Westminster and campaigner on the winning Starmer and Sadiq Khan campaigns Tara Jane O’Reilly talks to Ian Dunt about the m...
20 min
1173
War On The Bullsh*t: How to spot when DATA is l...
Why do we believe lies just because there’s a graph attached? How can we develop a sixth sense to detect statistical disinformation? Data scientist and University of Washington professor Jevin D West, co-author of Calling Bullsh*t: The Art Of Scepticis...
29 min
1174
Superpower vs Futurepower: The coming CHINA-IND...
What should we watch out for in the impending confrontation between India and China, the world’s largest democracy and the world’s largest autocratic superpower? And how does Pakistan fit in? Prof GUY BURTON of Vesalius College in Brussels joins Arthur...
21 min
1175
I Spit On Your Grades, or: Get Gavin Gone
A-Levelling down: can the Government just style out a total betrayal of hardworking strivers? And will Gavin Williamson stay unsacked before you finish this paragraph? Former MEP Caroline Voaden joins us to channel the rage of parents and teenagers eve...
48 min