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.
• Sign up to support the podcast and get episodes ad-free and early: patreon.com/bunkercast
• Apple users: Get all of our core shows ad-free and early with the Podmasters Originals super-subscription.
The Bunker is a Podmasters production.
1326
IMMIGRATION: Reasons to be cheerful? Ian Dunt t...
Priti Patel might be trying to stoke fears with her ludicrous ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander’ but as the Brexit madness recedes, is the environment for immigrants moving in an inexorably more liberal direction? Professor Jonathan Portes of KCL t...
25 min
1327
Creasy’s the word: STELLA CREASY MP on making m...
Some good stuff DID get done during the chaotic COVID Parliament that’s just ended. Walthamstow MP STELLA CREASY tells Ayesha Hazarika about her fight to get misogyny reclassified as a hate crime as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill, why women have been ...
24 min
1328
Daily: What we owe to JOHN HUME, with Claire Ha...
When JOHN HUME died earlier this week, presidents and political leaders across the spectrum eulogised him as nothing less than the father of peace in Northern Ireland. How did this quiet, determined man find a way to bring about the impossible, and sid...
26 min
1329
For Services To Brexit, I Mean Cricket… plus gu...
With the Grand Reopening leading inevitably to the Great Re-Locking, is No.10’s rule-by-snappy-slogan no longer fit for purpose? Has Boris Johnson’s back-scratching Dissolution Honours finally made Lords Reform inevitable – and should we fear ...
56 min
1330
“The Banksy of money”: Is CRYPTOCURRENCY out of...
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were supposed to overturn the tyranny of the banks and give consumers new power over their money. This financial Wild West is still plagued with fraud, scams, pyramid schemes and doomed start-ups. But as entrepreneur, inve...
26 min
1331
How Not To Waste The Next Four Years: MIATTA FA...
If we’re stuck with a hard right government for the next four years, how should progressives best use this time? Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation MIATTA FAHNBULLEH talks to Alex Andreou about the opportunities amid the chaos, how it’s im...
29 min
1332
Probing the Pandemic: LAYLA MORAN on MPs’ indep...
Britain can’t wait for the Government’s Public Inquiry into COVID. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus is seizing the initiative and examining every aspect of the crisis. Its chair, Lib Dem MP and leadership candidate LAYLA MORAN, explains...
25 min
1333
Private Investigations: BELLINGCAT and open sou...
From unmasking suspects in the Salisbury poisoning to exposing money laundering and Russian involvement in the shooting down of flight MH-17, investigative collective Bellingcat is at the forefront of a new kind of investigative journalism. Founder ELI...
28 min
1334
Oh My Darling, Quarantine
Is the summer tourist season already a write-off for Europe – and will the traditional foreign holiday become history? Are you ready to start paying more tax from the age of 40 to fund your own social care? And as COVID continues to hollow out city cen...
52 min
1335
“The Golden Age of Incompetence”: Ian Dunt meet...
“We’ve been kettled with our own thoughts.” Comedy writer and friend of the podcast JASON HAZELEY – Screenwipe writer and co-creator of everything from the grown-up Ladybird books to Philomena Cunk – talks to Ian Dunt about what the p...
28 min
1336
The Great Deceleration is coming, says DANNY DO...
We’re conditioned to think that economic development will get faster and faster. But it turns out that many key indicators from population growth to GDP expansion are slowing down. DANNY DORLING, social geographer and author of Slowdown: The End Of The...
33 min
1337
Daily: JARVIS COCKER is born again
A pop career is for life. Art explorer, national treasure and former Pulp frontman JARVIS COCKER talks to Andrew Harrison about his return to the music fray with new band Jarv Is… and new album Beyond The Pale. On the agenda: the musical concerns of th...
22 min
1338
Building back better with MOLLY SCOTT CATO of t...
Can Europe really build back better after the pandemic? How does the EU’s response to COVID look when you’re one of Britain’s former MEPs? Molly Scott Cato, former Green Party MEP and the party’s current Brexit and Finance spokesperson, joins Alex Andr...
25 min
1339
Russia Report: It’s A Vladi Disgrace
“In Moscow, inquiry closes YOU.” As the Russia Report confirms the Conservatives’ wilful blind eye to Putin’s interference in UK elections, where do we go from here? If we rage about the Russians supposedly tipping the Referendum or the General Electio...
54 min
1340
Why Corona is a feminist issue
Coronavirus has put women out of work more frequently than men, led to a spike in domestic violence, pushed women’s healthcare down the list of priorities, and set the scene for a mental health crisis for women. Yet politicians appear blind to the pand...
30 min
1341
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
1342
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
1343
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
1344
“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
1345
“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
1346
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
1347
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
1348
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
1349
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
1350
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