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.
1326
Oh, Those Russians: IAN DUNT on Russia Report Week
The Intelligence report into Russian interference in British elections and the Referendum is finally published this week – but what will it mean? Why are Brexiters so keen to discredit it? And are Tory backbenchers finally growing a spine? Ian...
23 min
1327
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Troll: LUKE HARDING on...
Hold the front podcast page! The infamous Russia Report could well come out next week. What will it reveal? The Guardian’s Russia correspondent LUKE HARDING, author of Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem And Russia’s Remaking Of The West and first Br...
31 min
1328
Dirty deals with demagogues: ANNE APPLEBAUM on ...
Why do former democrats and intellectuals so often make the squalid journey from liberalism to hardline nationalism? Historian ANNE APPLEBAUM’s new book Twilight Of Democracy: The Failure Of Politics And The Parting Of Friends describes why once-libera...
30 min
1329
“A Season Of Insanity”: Republicans against Trump
As America faces the dire prospect of a Trump second term, the hardest-hitting, most brutal and effective anti-Trump ads come from the rebel Republicans of Super PAC the Lincoln Project. Former George W Bush and John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt of ...
49 min
1330
“Long COVID” – A new and hidden crisis
Not everyone with COVID ends up in hospital. Sufferers are beginning to report a disturbing post-viral syndrome of deep, extended fatigue, weakness, “brain fog”, anxiety and weird physical sensations that they’re calling “Long COVID”. Paul Garner of th...
29 min
1331
Peak Hour: How Corona will change TRAVEL IN CITIES
How will transport in cities change after the COVID wave subsides? Will financial worries make high-frequency public transport a thing of the past, just when we need it most? And will we even WANT to live in cities any more? Jonn Elledge of urban nerde...
22 min
1332
Daily: COVID, MS and the coming charity crash
COVID’s impact on people with multiple sclerosis has been cruel beyond even the privations experienced by the rest of us. Our panelist Ros Taylor has never spoken about her own MS diagnosis before. In conversation with David Martin, CEO of the MS Trust...
20 min
1333
Daily: MASHA GESSEN on Trump, Putin and the Pow...
Donald Trump annihilates the language of democracy even as he campaigns to destroy its institutions – and in this, he’s just like Putin. In a podcast unlike any we’ve recorded (complete with live thunderstorms), the author of Surviving Autocracy MASHA ...
17 min
1334
Karma for Police? UK cops in the spotlight
As #BlackLivesMatter puts law enforcement under microscope worldwide, policing expert and former Met officer Peter Kirkham gives the view from inside British policing. Plus, what does Beijing’s draconian crackdown on free speech mean for Hong Kong citi...
48 min
1335
Protest and Survive with guest PETER TATCHELL
From Bermondsey to Zimbabwe to Moscow and beyond, PETER TATCHELL has been fighting for human rights for over 50 years… and the LGBT rights that got him pilloried by the tabloids in 1983 are now the stuff of the mainstream. As we enter the most dangerou...
32 min
1336
Carry On COVID with stand-up comic CARL DONNELLY
Recorded before the Government’s announcement on support for the arts… Last Friday Naomi Smith talked to stand-up comedian and host of the Two Vegan Idiots podcast CARL DONNELLY about the battered state of comedy and the arts under the COVID onslaught....
22 min
1337
Arias of concern: Can OPERA come back from Corona?
Extended culture upgrade special! Like all live music, opera has been floored by COVID-19. Can an art form that thrives on crowds and projecting your voice (and your breath) survive this game-changing crisis? Will opera houses face bankruptcy? How is t...
45 min
1338
Dine Another Day? JAY RAYNER on restaurants’ CO...
GRAVE RESERVATIONS: Britain’s restaurants will unlock this weekend in a life or death moment for an industry that employs almost a million people. Will diners embrace their freedom or will FOGO keep them away? How has the COVID lockdown changed our rel...
28 min
1339
Leadership lessons from Keir and Klopp
Was Keir Starmer right to defenestrate Rebecca Long-Bailey and will this reset the DAYS SINCE LABOUR BUST-UP clock to zero? Special guest Philip Seargeant, author of The Art of Political Storytelling, explains how narrative crowded out truth i...
45 min
1340
Censors Working Overtime: How NO PLATFORM becam...
Is there a real free speech crisis in universities or is it just another confected Culture War squabble? With people like Amber Rudd banned from speaking simply for having been in government, is No Platform overreaching itself? And how did a bunch of d...
20 min
1341
Communication Breakdown: The MEDIA vs Coronavir...
Is the pandemic an extinction event for news media, or a strange opportunity? Is trust in journalism really collapsing in the age of populism? And is the BBC still top of Dominic Cummings’ To Destroy list? Don of media analysts RAYMOND SNODDY –&nbs...
31 min
1342
The COVID cost of the Hostile Immigration Envir...
Immigration is the topic most guaranteed to drive good sense out of the room. Will opinions be changed by COVID’s sobering reminder of the irreplaceable work that immigrants do? Has Black Lives Matter shown us the progress we’ve made – or the progress ...
31 min
1343
Daily: Why can’t we go SWIMMING yet?
If shops and pubs can reopen, why can’t pools? Swimming saves the NHS and social care some £357m a year, yet the Government’s mishandling of community sport is a microcosm of its muddled approach across Coronavirus. How badly will this affect young swi...
15 min
1344
Mask Hysteria! plus We’re Only Quarantining Nigel
Are you wearing your facemask? If not, WHY NOT? Plus: Has Britain’s shambolic response to COVID exposed something worse than bad leadership: a deep-seated rot in the British state itself? What’s going to happen when mass unemployment hits the sharp-elb...
52 min
1345
Gigs might fly: LIVE MUSIC’s last chance?
Hundreds of thousands of people should be heading to Glastonbury right now. Instead the live music industry is hanging on by its fingernails, hundreds of venues are threatened with closure, and the Government hasn’t included music in its ‘Cultural Rene...
27 min
1346
Daily: HONG KONG rages against the machine
As China tries to impose its authority on Hong Kong, can the former British colony retain some semblance of independence? What’s behind the creeping authoritarianism of Beijing’s Fugitive Offenders Bill? And are Britain’s moves on British National Over...
18 min
1347
Daily: INDIA’s twilight of democracy
In India, Narendra Modi’s populist BJP government has stripped back rights further than in almost any advanced democracy. The country’s COVID response has caused nightmarish problems for the world’s most populous country. And now we’ve seen a bizarre h...
27 min
1348
“We don’t need another racism inquiry. We need ...
What will it take to translate the unprecedented debate on racism and bias into action? Battersea Labour MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities MARSHA DE CORDOVA talks to Naomi Smith about a moment that could change Britain. ...
29 min
1349
Spike Island
As Britain zealously unlocks its shops and zoos (but not its schools), are we knocking over the norms that we’ll need to deal with a second wave of COVID? What are we going to do after the pandemic when AI and automation take all the jobs? Guest Daniel...
47 min
1350
Liberté, Egalité, Acrimonie: FRANCE’s Coronavir...
Emmanuel Macron continues to suffer from France’s traditional disdain for its leader. How has the pandemic affected France’s notorious febrile politics? Why is France so unhappy with Macron? Will Black Lives Matter finally force change on the notorious...
21 min