The Bunker
Your daily need to know on news and politics. Every weekday 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: Gavin Esler • Ros Taylor.• Hannah Fearn • Andrew Harrison • Jacob Jarvis • Emma Kennedy • Rafael Behr • Seth Thévoz.
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The Bunker is a Podmasters production.
1151
The 2021 HAIRCUT RIOTS – Start Your Week with Y...
As England scratches at the doors of pubs and hairdressers like a starving cat, Yasmeen Serhan joins Andrew Harrison to set out the week’s news stories. Are we on for a retail superspreader event? Plus the Cameron-Greensill scandal gets worse, London d...
23 min
1152
Daily: Out of tragedy, a video game against ext...
When digital artist Dan Hett tragically lost his brother Martin in the 2017 Manchester bombings, he turned to the world of interactive fiction to help him understand what had happened – and ultimately he produced the game ‘Closed Hands’, which examines...
24 min
1153
Daily: How an “activist prosecutor” took on Bri...
Content warning: Includes discussion of sexual violence and abuse. What is it like being an “activist prosecutor” in a legal system hampered by institutional prejudice and often indifference? Former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal tells The Observer’s Nic...
24 min
1154
“Treat this race report like climate change den...
Good news, everyone! Institutional racism is over, at least according to the Government-sponsored Sewell Report into racial disparity in the UK. As the report falls to pieces in plain sight, special guest Matthew Ryder QC (former London Deputy Mayor fo...
59 min
1155
Insane In The Ukraine – Arthur Snell starts you...
Russia is massing troops on the Ukrainian border. Does Putin just want to hand Biden his first test, or is there more to it? Plus: the tangled mess that is vaccine passports. Why your foreign holiday is probably off this year. Keir Starmer under a clou...
24 min
1156
Daily: ETON ALIVE – Being black among Britain’s...
What is it like being one of the few black people at Eton and Oxford? And what do they actual teach our future rulers? Musa Okwonga is the author One of Them: An Eton College Memoir, and host of the Stadio football podcast. He talks to Alex Andreou abo...
25 min
1157
Daily: Why DEATH should be a party
When writer Erica Buist had the traumatic experience of finding her partner’s father dead in his home, it led her to ask why we respond to death with fear and sadness – and ultimately to travel from Mexico to Nepal and beyond to research the surprising...
25 min
1158
Once Upon A Time In Holyrood – with guest Kate ...
What will the Sturgeon/Salmond stand-off mean for the SNP’s make-or-break bid for re-election and a second independence referendum? And can an independent Scotland pay its way? SNP Cabinet Secretary for Finance Kate Forbes is our special guest. Plus: W...
54 min
1159
“Essentially a new epidemic?” IAN DUNT starts y...
Outdoor “mingling” is back but as the Government bets all on the vaccine, are they ignoring the danger of new COVID variants? And if/when it all goes wrong, will it somehow be Europe’s fault again? Plus the possible Labour reshuffle, the SNP vs the Alb...
25 min
1160
Special: The Last Days of The UK? GAVIN ESLER a...
With Brexit opening a Pandora’s Box of irrational nationalism in England, and Scotland and Northern Ireland heading to the exit door, the break-up of the United Kingdom is no longer a weird fantasy but a real possibility. Nick Cohen talks to the writer...
25 min
1161
Daily: FRANKENSTEIN IN DIGITAL – The coming AI ...
Are we ready to live alongside artificial minds? And why do we still harbour a Terminator-style fear of vengeful machines? Oxford University Professor of Computer Science Michael Wooldridge, author of The Road to Conscious Machines, says we are on the ...
30 min
1162
Daily: BORN IN CRISIS How constitutions are cre...
Constitutions are the rulebooks of government, but how does each country get its own peculiar arrangements? Linda Colley, author of The Gun, The Ship, And The Pen: War, Constitutions And The Making Of The Modern World, tells Ros Taylor about the extrao...
21 min
1163
Daily: The City trader who fought ISIS
What makes someone give up a lucrative job in the City of London to risk their life fighting ISIS in Syria – with no prior military training? In one of our most astonishing interviews, Macer Gifford describes how he left the UK to spend three long tour...
25 min
1164
CSI: Westminster
Which flavour of police overreach do you like least: COVID regulations if you’re on the right, or the Police Bill if you’re centre-left? Special guest Emily Benn joins us to disentangle the worsening mess of civil rights under this government. And with...
58 min
1165
PER ARDUA, NO ASTRA – Start Your Week with Alex...
The EU:UK vaccine export row: who’s in the right and will a friendly phone call from Boris Johnson sort it all out like it always does? On the anniversary of Lockdown 1, will the pandemic regulations face a rocky renewal? And Christmas comes early for ...
20 min
1166
Extra: ISOLATION INSPIRATION with author Franci...
A bonus weekend edition… Finding inspiration in the midst of pandemic can be difficult, but how hard is it to write a book about a city you can’t visit because of lockdown? And how has the Church fared during this period of enforced isolation?...
21 min
1167
Daily: Roofless People – How we COULD solve the...
The Grenfell tragedy exposed the worst of a housing crisis which affects some 8 million people and leaves one in seven people in unaffordable or unsuitable homes. How did we get into this mess and how do we get out of it? Why can’t we build enough hous...
26 min
1168
Daily: THE RUSSIAN SPY AND I — Up close with Br...
For British intelligence, Soviet mole George Blake was possibly the most damaging traitor of the whole Cold War. Towards the end of Blake’s life the FT’s Simon Kuper met the ageing defector for “the most extraordinary interview of my life.” He tells Ar...
28 min
1169
Daily: TWO TRIBES GO TO WAR? The strange truths...
Is Britain as divided over COVID as we were over Brexit? Do people really think that if you lost your job during the pandemic, it’s your fault? And if Brexity pundits are so anti-lockdown, why are Leave voters largely in favour of restrictions? Bobby D...
24 min
1170
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT: Police vigil fiasco – plu...
The Metropolitan Police’s brutal intervention during Saturday’s vigil Sarah Everard leaves the country aghast. What really happened? What needs to change if British cities are to be safe for women? Special guest Alex Massie of The Times and The Spectat...
54 min
1171
WILL PROTEST SURVIVE? Start Your Week with Ros ...
The Met’s outrageous clampdown on the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common has put Priti Patel’s draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill under a harsh spotlight. Could a bill that effectively outlaws public protest blow up in the Governmen...
22 min
1172
Extra: The DIGITAL FLOOD that drowns democracy ...
“Peter explains better than anyone I know the new world of Putinesque, Trumpian propaganda.” In a weekend bonus, Nick Cohen of The Observer talks to Peter Pomerantsev, author of This Is Not Propaganda : Adventures in the War Against Reality, about how ...
24 min
1173
Daily: From shogun to Sony, JAPAN explained
Few countries exercise such world-wide fascination while being as little understood outside their own borders as Japan. Christopher Harding, author of The Japanese: A History In 20 Lives, talks to Ros Taylor about the key figures who shaped Japan over ...
25 min
1174
Daily: ARABIAN VORTEX – Understanding Yemen’s n...
Yemen is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, a conflict that has killed some 100,000 people since 2015 and left 24m in peril. Now it’s dragging countries across the region into its vortex. How did we get here? Exactly how are Saudi Arabia ...
17 min
1175
Daily: How the fantasy religion VALKISM powers ...
Amid the chaos of the Capitol Invasion of January 6, keen observers could spot the iconography of Valkism, a weird confected “religion” born out of video game culture that’s now empowering QAnon and far right politics. Former Government advisor and BBC...
21 min