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.
1351
Daily: Pains, Trains and Automobiles
COVID19 has caused the biggest shake-up in transport in over thirty years – with huge bailouts, U-Turns and financial crunches piling up as passenger numbers plummet. Transport writer and broadcaster Christian Wolmar spoke to Justin Quirk what state th...
20 min
1352
Daily: DAVID DIMBLEBY on the Iraq War and more,...
Broadcasting legend and former Question Time host DAVID DIMBLEBY dives into the undiscovered weeds of the Iraq War on his new podcast The Fault Line. He talks to Ian Dunt about the fatal relationship between Bush and Blair, how Iraq began the poisoning...
26 min
1353
Daily: Inside the SPYCOPS bill
The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill known as SpyCops is one of the most controversial pieces of legislation before Parliament – and the Labour Party is only timidly opposing it. Is a bill that permits state agents to break the...
19 min
1354
CLOWNFALL: Donald Trump’s demise – plus Scottis...
Where were you when the Don went down? And what does Trump’s end mean for Britain? Plus, as COVID, No Deal and general incompetence drive Scotland further away from Westminster, could independence really happen? SNP MP Alyn Smith and pro-union (OR IS S...
57 min
1355
START YOUR WEEK: Joe vs the Shapeshifting Creep
Will Trump concede and what happens if he won’t? Can Boris “Britain Trump” make amends to a new President who remembers his “slavish devotion” to his predecessor? Plus: Dido Harding up before the beak in Parliamentary Committee and the small matter of ...
26 min
1356
Bonus: America’s next leaders in BOYS STATE on ...
A weekend bonus edition: Since 1935 the American Legion has organised summer camps for high school students to learn about US Government, by forming their own political parties and state legislatures. Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine documented...
26 min
1357
US ELECTION: One day, like a miracle, he will d...
As Biden slowly erodes Donald Trump’s leads in the final swing states, we convene our favourite expert regulars for an all-star postmortem of Election 2020. Former Obama staffer Amy Pope, UCL politics professor Brian Klaas and Steve Schmidt of never-Tr...
40 min
1358
Daily: The cult of GUY FAWKES
Was Guy Fawkes really “the last honest man to enter Parliament”, as we keep hearing on Twitter? Or a fore-runner of today’s religiously radicalised terrorists? Why is a villain of the Gunpowder Plot acclaimed as a hero by some in 2020? Nick Holland, au...
13 min
1359
Daily: US ELECTION on a knife edge
Been to bed yet? Thinking about going straight back? Yasmeen Serhan gives Andrew Harrison her morning-after interim report on the dismal deadlock in the Presidential Election. How has Trump done so well? Can Biden still scrape it? Did the polls get it ...
20 min
1360
Wake Me When November Ends
National lockdown, Labour Party breakdown… Trump takedown? As the US election reaches its nightmare final confrontation, small-c conservative and Never Trumper James Kirchick joins us to argue that American democracy won’t end if Trump wins. Plus, what...
44 min
1361
Start Your Week: TRUMP/BIDEN ENDGAME with Brian...
The most expensive Presidential election in history ends tomorrow. BRIAN KLAAS, Associate Professor in Global Politics at UCL, host of the Power Corrupts podcast, and author of How to Rig an Election tells Andrew Harrison about the states to watch, the...
26 min
1362
Daily: A COVID escape route for Britain?
Lockdown II: If the Government can’t come up with a COVID exit strategy, could a coalition of MPs, experts and campaigners provide one? And can Britain cope even if we never get a vaccine? March for Change director Tom Brufatto tells Naomi Smith about ...
17 min
1363
Daily: CTRL-ALT-DISINFO
When you go online the mildest disagreements can spin out of control into real anger, but why is our internet behaviour so bad? And how is this affecting democracy and public discourse? David Babbs, project lead at the campaign group ‘Clean Up The Inte...
23 min
1364
Daily: Our Chemical Romance – Ending the WAR ON...
With a decades-long failed War on Drugs behind us, is it finally time to accept the inevitable – and let the state regulate illegal substances? Steve Rolles, author and policy analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, tells Ian Dunt how we ...
19 min
1365
Eat Nowt To Help Out – plus special guest JESS ...
The free school meals fiasco sends the Conservative Party right back to its happy place: being mean to poor kids. Special guest JESS PHILLIPS, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, joins us to discuss Labour’s future, Starmer’s report card so far, how Birm...
54 min
1366
Daily: Are BREXIT IDENTITIES still our masters?
Nearly four years after the Referendum, are Leave vs Remain attitudes still driving our politics? Are we stuck with them forever? And how do they map onto other issues like masks, authoritarianism or social liberalism? Paula Surridge, a political socio...
23 min
1367
Daily: Start Your Week with Ros Taylor
Will the Special Boat Service raid on a hijacked tanker take the country’s minds off the Government’s continued mishandling of COVID? Why are we shortening quarantine periods when people aren’t even observing the existing rules? Has No.10 successfully ...
19 min
1368
Daily: TRUMP-BIDEN debate – Crazy Uncle’s Last ...
The last confrontation between Donald Trump and Joe Biden avoided the shame of the first debate, but did it change the dynamic of the race? And how come we didn’t discover a mute button back in 2016? Thomas Gift, Associate Professor of Political Scienc...
21 min
1369
Daily: WALES vs. COVID – How clean are my valleys?
Is Wales really setting the COVID agenda for the rest of the UK? As the “firebreak” comes down, former special advisor to First Minister Mark Drakeford turned political consultant Cathy Owens talks to Jude Rogers. Is Wales responding better to lockdown...
24 min
1370
Will the King In The North bend the knee?
Recorded before No.10 imposed a solution on Manchester. With Manchester refusing to accept Government terms to enter Tier 3, and Wales heading for a ‘circuit-breaker’, what does rebellion in the regions mean for the Government’s lockdown strategy? Have...
53 min
1371
Daily: Inside New Zealand’s Ardern of Eden
Are progressives right to get so excited about Jacinda Ardern? She’s won admiration for her handling of the COVID crisis and the massacre in a Christchurch mosque – and for crushing New Zealand’s equivalent of Ukip. Toby Manhire, editor of The Spin-Off...
18 min
1372
Start Your Week: The North hits back with ALEX ...
As Boris Johnson falls out with everyone – Manchester, Brussels, scientists, his own Northern MPs – what can we expect for the biggest crisis week since last week. Alex Andreou tells us what to expect from the EU talks-that-aren’t talks, Westm...
22 min
1373
Daily: Turning misogyny into terror
A poisonous online culture of misogyny is radicalising young men to hate women – producing terrifying consequences from routine rape and death threats against female politicians to actual violence and murder. Author of Men Who Hate Women and f...
27 min
1374
Daily: On Your Bike, Britain!
More bikes and fewer cars on the road has turned out to be one of the unexpected dividends of COVID. But can Britain ever get to an Amsterdam-style paradise of bikes? And will Britons ever stop raging about cyclists? Coventry’s Cycling Mayor Adam Trant...
24 min
1375
Weekly: It’ll End In Tiers
Has the Government’s emergency tier strategy broken the short-lived compact between the Conservatives and the North? Is new government spokesperson Allegra Stratton more than just a human shield for former communications genius Boris Johnson? And does ...
52 min