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.
1251
Daily: REBELS WITHOUT A CLUE The psychology of ...
Bleach! 5G! Bats! Why would anyone march with a banner that reads “Sacrifice the Weak”? Is the political reaction to COVID really being influenced by conspiracy theory? And can a democracy function when many voters simply reject facts in favour of comf...
27 min
1252
Daily: Can AVIATION survive isolation?
The airline and travel industries are suffering the most serious crisis in their history: worse than 9/11, the 2008 financial slump and the Icelandic volcano combined. Can air travel survive COVID? And given its carbon footprint, do we even want it to?...
33 min
1253
DAILY: What are we going to do about TAX?
Britain’s tax system was already a mess before the COVID-19 emergency sent the public finances into a crisis of wartime proportions. Is this a moment to radically re-engineer government revenue? Are we taxing the right things, activities… or people? Wi...
26 min
1254
Daily: Sweden’s Corona gamble
While the rest of Europe locked down, Sweden took a different and much looser path on dealing with COVID. Is their controversial approach working? Is Sweden right to measure itself against a longer-term tally of suffering caused by the virus’s economic...
22 min
1255
Nothin’ But A 5G Thang
After the Sunday Times exposé of Johnson’s indolent initial response to the COVID crisis, is the Government’s infantile “rebuttal” an attempt to rewrite the facts of what happened? Hard Lockdown vs Soft Open: economics writer Frances Coppola joins us t...
53 min
1256
Daily: SCIENCE VS POLITICS. The Empirical Strik...
After years of rubbishing expertise, politicians are now turning to science in humble desperation. Buzzfeed and Telegraph science writer TOM CHIVERS, author of The AI Does Not Hate You, talks to Ian Dunt about the uneasy alliance between science and po...
30 min
1257
Daily: Will COVID take meat off your plate?
We’ve all heard about the “wet markets” in Wuhan. How connected are COVID-19 and dangers of future pandemics to the world meat trade? JULIET GELLATLEY of vegan charity Viva! explains how indiscriminate mixing of species and neglect of hygiene in meat m...
30 min
1258
Daily: Can MUSIC survive Corona?
Music makes life worth living for some of us, and live shows are the only way many artists make a living. As Corona puts the music industry in an induced coma, TOM GRAY of Gomez talks to Dorian Lynskey about the monumental challenges that music faces. ...
27 min
1259
Daily: CHINA CRISIS with Dr Yu Jie
How did China really perform in the biggest global health disaster in 100 years? Chatham House China and diplomacy expert DR YU JIE gives Alex Andreou the inside story on the PRC’s response to Corona. What was behind the infamous silencing of warnings ...
19 min
1260
Labour’s bin-fire reignites
The Labour antisemitism leak: what does it mean and is anyone going to jail for a data breach? Plus, how long can lockdown continue? Why herd immunity isn’t a scare phrase but in fact the only way we’ll beat COVID. The magical, corporeally-fixated inca...
53 min
1261
Daily: Can POETRY help us handle the Plague?
Who knew that poetry would join videoconferencing and sourdough-making as one of the key ways we got through the COVID lockdown? SARAH CROWN, Director of Literature at the Arts Council and senior reviewer for the Guardian and the TLS, talks to Ros Tayl...
26 min
1262
DAILY: Among the Apocalypse Addicts with author...
It’s the end of the world as we know it and… some people are quite into that, it seems. Why are so many people so keen on the end of everything? What do doomsday preppers, alt.right catastrophists and billionaire plutocrat antidemocrats like Peter Thie...
28 min
1263
DAILY: Corona Fraud and how to beat it – with A...
The COVID lockdown has provided scammers, fraudsters and cybercriminals with a golden opportunity to find new ways to steal. Now ALEXIS CONRAN, presenter on The Real Hustle and talkRadio, tells Naomi Smith about the new scams they’re using, and how to ...
30 min
1264
DAILY: “This is the NHS’s day and this is its h...
COVID-19 has put the NHS under the spotlight as never before but how many of us really understand the true state of this national treasure? ROY LILLEY is one of the most influential voices in the world of public health. Today he explains the catastroph...
35 min
1265
Crisis management with DAVID LAMMY, Shadow Just...
Newly-promoted Shadow Justice Secretary DAVID LAMMY joins us in an unprecedented week in British politics. Has Boris Johnson’s hospitalisation finally brought home the seriousness of COVID-19 to the hosts of secret barbecues and birthday parties? Does ...
52 min
1266
DAILY: Work-life balance on steroids with GABY ...
WFH? WTF! As the world adjusts to flexible working, will we ever go back to offices, meetings and “presenteeism”? GABY HINSLIFF, Guardian writer and author of Half a Wife: The Working Family's Guide to Getting a Life Back, talks to Ros Taylor abou...
23 min
1267
Daily: NIGELLA LAWSON’s lockdown kitchen
Domestic Goddess NIGELLA LAWSON comes to the nation’s aid in a Lockdown Kitchen conversation with our own Alex Andreou. What’s her emergency back-of-the-cupboard recipe for when the chips are down (and there aren’t any chips)? Is isolation reminding us...
26 min
1268
DAILY: Inside apocalypse fiction with NAOMI ALD...
What’s so seductive about the end of everything? What happens when you’re writing a novel about an apocalyptic future, and then an apocalyptic future arrives? NAOMI ALDERMAN, author of bravura sci-fi gender reversal novel The Power and now showrunner f...
34 min
1269
DAILY: Extend EU transition, says Tory exile LO...
Exiled Tory moderniser LORD ANDREW COOPER talks to Naomi Smith about the grave consequences of ignoring Brexit because of COVID-19, why the crisis government is neither “socialist” nor “conservative” but populist nationalist, and why Johnson’s stubborn...
23 min
1270
Coronanomics and Intensive Keir
As the Corona Age sets in, will it change our politics and economy more fundamentally than your average here-today-gone-tomorrow World Existential Crisis? What does the outpouring of national gratitude towards the NHS mean for its future? And will the ...
53 min
1271
BUNKER DAILY: Horrible Historian GREG JENNER on...
He advises on the BBC’s Horrible Histories and now he’s podcasting to keep kids from going stir-crazy on lockdown. Historian GREG JENNER tells Ian Dunt what the Plague in 17th Century Florence can tell us about public emergencies, why past crises are n...
31 min
1272
BUNKER DAILY: Post-Corona and post-Corbyn with ...
Guardian columnist ELLIE MAE O’HAGAN talks to Dorian Lynskey about how the Corona wrecking ball will reshape society, the big changes coming in the Labour Party, and her upcoming book The New Normal. What does Labour need to jettison from the Corbyn er...
21 min
1273
BUNKER DAILY: Wigan warrior LISA NANDY on Coron...
“Corona has shown us that weakness anywhere is weakness everywhere.” Labour leadership candidate LISA NANDY tells Naomi Smith how the crisis has utterly transformed politics in Britain. Do we need a National COBRA drawing on talent from outside party p...
29 min
1274
New BUNKER DAILY: The Corona Bill and your rights
NEW: A daily Bunker mini-cast for the duration of the lock-in, and maybe beyond.On today’s debut edition, the emergency Corona Bill changes our rights in ways unthinkable in normal times, with extra ministerial powers, suspension of protections for ...
20 min
1275
Corona My House – plus a climate change reset?
How’s your lockdown? What tipped Johnson and Cummings over the edge from “herd immunity” to total shutdown? Why is the Government that spent £100m on Brexit adverts not committing a penny to public health advertising on social media? And what is Rishi ...
50 min