The Bunker – News without the nonsense
News without the nonsense, every weekday morning. In episodes that fit your commute*, The Bunker cuts through the noise to make sense of what’s really going on in news, current affairs, politics, economics and culture. We bring you smart explainers, interviews, fresh perspectives and under-reported stories to as a refreshing alternative to repetitive 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 • Alex von Tunzelmann • Andrew Harrison • Zing Tsjeng • Jacob Jarvis • Emma Kennedy • Rafael Behr • Seth Thévoz.
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(* Even if it’s just from the kitchen to the front room. )
The Bunker is a Podmasters production.
1451
ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT: Police vigil fiasco – plu...
The Metropolitan Police’s brutal intervention during Saturday’s vigil Sarah Everard leaves the country aghast. What really happened? What needs to change if British cities are to be safe for women? Special guest Alex Massie of The Times and The Spectat...
54 min
1452
WILL PROTEST SURVIVE? Start Your Week with Ros ...
The Met’s outrageous clampdown on the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common has put Priti Patel’s draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill under a harsh spotlight. Could a bill that effectively outlaws public protest blow up in the Governmen...
22 min
1453
Extra: The DIGITAL FLOOD that drowns democracy ...
“Peter explains better than anyone I know the new world of Putinesque, Trumpian propaganda.” In a weekend bonus, Nick Cohen of The Observer talks to Peter Pomerantsev, author of This Is Not Propaganda : Adventures in the War Against Reality, about how ...
24 min
1454
Daily: From shogun to Sony, JAPAN explained
Few countries exercise such world-wide fascination while being as little understood outside their own borders as Japan. Christopher Harding, author of The Japanese: A History In 20 Lives, talks to Ros Taylor about the key figures who shaped Japan over ...
25 min
1455
Daily: ARABIAN VORTEX – Understanding Yemen’s n...
Yemen is suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, a conflict that has killed some 100,000 people since 2015 and left 24m in peril. Now it’s dragging countries across the region into its vortex. How did we get here? Exactly how are Saudi Arabia ...
17 min
1456
Daily: How the fantasy religion VALKISM powers ...
Amid the chaos of the Capitol Invasion of January 6, keen observers could spot the iconography of Valkism, a weird confected “religion” born out of video game culture that’s now empowering QAnon and far right politics. Former Government advisor and BBC...
21 min
1457
Back In The Jug Agane – Britian’s skools reopen
It’s the end of an era! As parents collapse weeping to their knees in a fug of gin, has home schooling changed how we teach kids? Will in-school testing stick? And will the experience shine a light on the God-awfulness of the National Curriculum? PLUS:...
55 min
1458
International Women’s Day Special: A Bunker Of ...
What does today’s International Women’s Day stand for when we’re in the middle of a new wave of feminism? What can women expect from government when its fill-in Equalities Minister thinks there ought to be a Minister for Men? Naomi Smith presents a spe...
38 min
1459
Daily: BACK IN THE USSR? Author Sergei Lebedev ...
Novelist Sergei Lebedev writes forensically detailed books which uncover how Soviet history still exerts its power on modern Russians. According to the New York Review of Books he’s “the best of Russia’s younger generation of writers.” He talks to Alex...
21 min
1460
Daily: TRUST ISSUE – Why are minorities avoidin...
Why are so many minority patients rejecting the COVID vaccines and what can healthcare do about it? Vaccine hesitancy in minority communities is threatening to turn the pandemic into a specific crisis for marginalised and non-white populations. Ayesha ...
28 min
1461
Daily: LITTLE ENGLAND vs GLOBAL BRITAIN – with ...
Just how global can Britain be if we’re becoming ever-more insular after Brexit? Naomi Smith talks to Peter Westmacott, former ambassador to Turkey, France and the USA, about the hidden prejudices that influence international relations, whether the adv...
31 min
1462
THE FAKE NEWS FIGHTBACK with guest Alan Rusbridger
Would you get get a vaccine passport if it meant you could go out to eat, drink and dance? Even if it created a two-tier Britain? Special guest Alan Rusbridger joins us to talk about his new book News And How To Use It, the crisis in journalism and how...
63 min
1463
Will Sunak bring the pain? – Start Your Week wi...
Will Wednesday’s Budget see the end of Sunshine Sunak or will the Chancellor put off the reckoning with financial Armageddon again? How will you spend the last week of home schooling? And what about that new Brazilian variant? Arthur Snell sets out the...
26 min
1464
Weekend extra: ROBERT MAXWELL’s cash from chaos
Bully, liar, tyrant, fantasist, thief on a monumental scale – just ask the Mirror pensioners – and narcissist of an even greater magnitude, Robert Maxwell was a villain for whom the term “disgraced newspaper tycoon” seems pitifully small. Yet ...
24 min
1465
Daily: Life after Mutti? GERMANY’s post-Merkel ...
After an initial COVID response that was lauded as an example to the world, Germany has experienced an unexpectedly harsh second wave. What will that mean for the twilight of the Merkel Era? Is Germany’s strange opposition coalition of libertarians, al...
23 min
1466
Daily: THE ACCIDENTAL PRESIDENT – The disasters...
Was the Trump Presidency just a publicity stunt that got out of hand? Film-maker James Fletcher’s new documentary on the 2016 campaign The Accidental President is streaming now on Amazon and Apple TV. He talks to Dorian Lynskey about ...
26 min
1467
MICHAEL HESELTINE talks to Ian Dunt: “Keep the ...
Our 250th edition! In the Thatcher governments of the 80s Michael Heseltine was the loudest voice for embattled One Nation Toryism. In later years he’s become a hero to Remainers, eventually paying for his Europhilia with expulsion from the party. Ian ...
18 min
1468
Weekly: Guest DAVID BLUNKETT on Johnson’s unloc...
As the Roadmap to Unlocking is unveiled, are Johnson’s plans over-cautious, reckless, unrealistic or maybe… reasonable? Special guest former Home Secretary David Blunkett joins us to explain what it’s like to make decisions in a crisis, what h...
66 min
1469
Remember “outside”? Start Your Week with Ros Ta...
Will Boris Johnson’s “schools first” plan for unlocking England placate the headbangers of the CRG? What about those desperate for a beer that’s not from a can? Can Keir Starmer out-caution the PM? And what’s going on with Johnson’s latest wheeze, a su...
21 min
1470
Daily: “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it” –...
After decades of feminist thought, why is history still a parade of men and the things they’ve done? The writers, poets and teachers behind the Twitter initiative @OnThisDayShe are putting women back into history, one day at a time – and they’re not le...
30 min
1471
Daily: The man who ran Britain
What does it mean to be indispensable? From Major through New Labour to the Coalition, the late Civil Service giant Jeremy Heywood was to a key advisor to four Prime Ministers, and Cabinet Secretary to two. Theresa May described him as “the greatest pu...
18 min
1472
Daily: Will the Gulf end up owning sport?
From the ownership of Manchester City and Paris St. Germain to motor sport in the Middle East to the Beijing Olympics, questionable regimes are laundering their reputations by association with elite sport. Does “sportswashing” work, and what can fans d...
22 min
1473
Corona Calamities and Climate Emergencies with ...
Britain’s COVID policy has failed women so badly that organisations from Amnesty to the Fawcett Society have called for the EHRC to intervene. Why can’t our blokey-bloke Cabinet understand that more than half the population is being hit harder by the v...
51 min
1474
Start Your Week: HEY, MR QUARANTINE MAN with Ia...
As enforced hotel quarantine kicks in, will closed borders mollify the increasingly restive Covid Recovery Group? And brace yourself for an entirely unnecessary War on Woke as the Government invents the Free Speech Champion – the worst superhe...
27 min
1475
Daily: PUTIN’S NEMESIS? Navalny’s Big Gamble, w...
When opposition figurehead and recovered Novichok target Alexei Navalny flew back to Russia to lead democracy protests, he took an enormous personal risk, of which instant imprisonment was only a part. Could Navalny’s mix of street demos and slick soci...
23 min