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.
1401
Daily: Leaves mean leaves! LOCKDOWN GARDENING w...
Put that sourdough starter away… Lockdown is the perfect opportunity to enrich the soul by discovering the mystery and magic of gardening. Superstar ethnobotanist JAMES WONG tells Alex Andreou how to start growing at home, and the hacks that c...
26 min
1402
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
1403
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
1404
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
1405
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
1406
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
1407
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
1408
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
1409
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
1410
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
1411
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
1412
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
1413
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
1414
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
1415
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
1416
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
1417
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
1418
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
1419
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
1420
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
1421
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
1422
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
1423
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
1424
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
1425
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