The Bunker – News without the nonsense

The dog days of summer continue to be dominated by flags, boats and hotels. Will the migrant protests and freelance flag-raising burn out or will the Mail’s dream of chaos in Britain come true? Plus as Trump’s Ukraine “solution” stumbles on he floats the idea of more military occupations of American cities; the French government teeters; and the Great Mounjaro Shortage of 2025. Ros Taylor sets out...

Some say Donald Trump’s ancestry ties him to Norse kings and even Rurik, founder of Russia’s first dynasty. In recent weeks, Russian state media have pushed the idea that Trump’s “Viking blood” explains his ruthless streak. But would the real Vikings have raised a flagon in his honour, or run him out of the fjord? Today on The Bunker , Chris Jones is joined by medieval historian Dr. Keith Ruiter ,...

The modern far right often play the underdogs, shaking fists at mysterious elites said to control our thoughts and culture. But much of their lexicon has already slipped into the mainstream. Phrases born on message boards now appear in newspapers, on TV, even in everyday chat. On today’s Bunker, Dorian Lynskey talks to journalist Matt McManus, assistant professor at Spelman College and host of the...

In a special crossover edition from our partner podcast, This is Not a Drill , Oz Katerji is joined by Keir Giles , author and Russia expert at Chatham House, to discuss the fallout from Trump’s meetings with Putin, Zelenskyy and a host of European leaders. After a frantic week of international diplomacy, what is the prospect of an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine?    We are sponsored by Indeed. Go...

“Britain’s heading for civil war.” “Immigration’s out of control.” “We’re stuck with two-tier woke policing.” How do you argue back when relatives, friends or colleagues start parroting Reform’s inflammatory half-truths? And when they’re encouraged by a compliant media and radicalised pundits? Campaigning journalist Paul Mason wrote How To Stop Fascism . He tells Andrew Harrison how to tell a pers...

After Trump’s meeting with Putin, world leaders are scrambling to the White House for damage control. Zelenskyy will be joined by an A-list cast of European figureheads – what will they be pushing for? Alex von Tunzelmann and Jacob Jarvis discuss all this and more as they tee up the week ahead.  We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.      Advertisers! Want t...

The new season of South Park is causing a stir with its sharp attacks on the Trump administration. Long seen as a bastion of free speech, the cartoon has built its reputation on skewering everyone, but is its trademark cynicism shifting towards a more targeted political stance? Today on The Bunker , Jacob Jarvis speaks with media critic Ciara Moloney to unpack the politics behind the long-running...

The world’s eyes will be on Vladimir Putin as he meets with Donald Trump in Alaska.  With Ukraine’s future on the table, could this be the Russian leader’s moment to get exactly what he wants? Today in The Bunker , Chris Jones is joined by Dr Ian Garner , author of Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth , to unpack what’s really at stake in this meeting of political powers. Buy Z G...

Daily life depends US-based cloud computing. What happens if Trump decides to use it as a weapon against his enemies, as he does with tariffs? Just three American firms – Google, Amazon, and Microsoft – control around two-thirds of Europe’s cloud infrastructure including the UK’s Home Office, HMRC, Department for Work and Pensions, and MoD. Could Trump order his cowed techbro allies to simply cut...

Politics has always been brutal but in the Trump era, it’s turned downright ugly. From Ted Cruz to Elon Musk, Donald Trump doesn’t just defeat opponents; he aims to degrade them. Public insults, jeers, the whip of a hostile crowd and, most of all, humiliation. Why does this gut-level tactic work so well for the leader of the free world? Today in The Bunker, Jacob Jarvis sits down with Toby Buckle...

Trump and Putin are due to meet in Alaska in a bilateral meeting despite a global push to ensure Zelenskyy is brought to the table. Will anything come of this, or is this just going to be a meeting of two super-egos? Rafael Behr joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss this and other news to look out for this week in Start Your Week.  We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored cre...

Rage against the machines? For 200 years “Luddite” was a term of abuse for deluded people who tried to hold back progress. But with A.I. threatening everything from mass unemployment to business tyranny to actual human extinction, maybe it’s time to accept that the 19th century worker’s rebellion under fictional leader Ned Ludd had a pretty good point. Brian Merchant , author of Blood in the Machi...

Nigel Farage claims Britain is on the edge of ‘societal collapse’ with crime so bad that people are scared to leave their own house. But is there any truth behind his claims or is it just another alarmist soundbite? Today in The Bunker , Jacob Jarvis talks to Zoë Grünewald , Westminster editor at The Lead , about whether Farage’s rhetoric matches reality and if it will swing votes in the next elec...

From the assassination that sparked the First World War to the covert drone strikes of today, targeted killing has been used to shape history and shift the balance of power for generations. Today in The Bunker, Seth Thévoz is joined by Simon Ball , professor of international history and politics at the University of Leeds and author of Death to Order: A Modern History of Assassination , to explore...

Were you up at 4am, crushing laps on the Assault Bike, triple-dosing beef tallow coffee, journaling your goals, and grinding through a high-performance podcast? No? Then what’s wrong with you? Welcome to the grindset —the cult-like mindset glorifying relentless work, self-optimisation, and so-called success. Fuelled by figures like Stephen Bartlett, Gary Vee, and James Watt, it dominates LinkedIn,...

A plan for new identity cards is reportedly in the offing, what is the government thinking and why? Plus, we look at the latest from online safety laws to Trump’s chaos in the United States, with Ros Taylor and Gavin Esler.    We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.      www.patreon.com/bunkercast        Advertisers! Want to reach smart, engaged, influential...

Talk ’ 90s To Me is the new podcast from the makers of The Bunker which dives into all the key characters and topics that made the 1990s great. The first episode covers Oasis and how they brought chaos, electricity and working-class swagger to a music scene dominated by po-faced grunge and indie bands in the early 1990s. How did the Gallaghers go from humble beginnings in Manchester to taking over...

From Trump to Putin to Israel/Gaza, a primal need for revenge saturates politics. But is vengeance an addiction like any other? Author and former lawyer James Kimmel Jr should know. Grievance and pain once drove him to such rage that he almost committed murder. He tells Andrew Harrison how his book The Science of Revenge explains why we take pleasure in others’ pain, why  Trump is obsessed with ge...

Donald Trump promised to expose Jeffrey Epstein’s secrets but now he’s backing away, and the conspiracy crowd that once adored him is asking some serious questions. Can Trump survive the fallout from the QAnon movement he helped ignite? And even if he does, what will it mean for the future of his party, beyond his time as president Today in The Bunker, Chris Jones is joined by Mike Rothschild , jo...

As Britain’s finances worsen, pressure is building for Labour to bring in a wealth tax on the super-rich – not least because Rachel Reeves has ruled out pretty much every other tax. How would it work? How much would it raise? Who would pay? And would those poor billionaires really flee Britain if it happened? Stephen Kinsella of Patriotic Millionaires UK explains why we really do need to tax the r...

Donald Trump is suing the Wall Street Journal and its owner, Rupert Murdoch , for $10 billion over a story linking him to Jeffrey Epstein . So what’s really behind Trump’s latest high profile spat with a former friend? Today in The Bunker , Gavin Esler is joined by William Cohan , journalist at The New York Times , to find out what this billionaire fallout tells us about power, media, and revenge...

Will Corbyn’s new outfit sustain momentum? And how will it change British politics if so? Plus, is Britain really at “breaking point”? Ros Taylor and Jacob Jarvis discuss the latest domestic news and look further afield to the situation in Gaza and the increased calls for a ceasefire. All that and more in Start Your Week.   We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored cre...

As tensions rise across the globe, hypersonic missiles, strategic algorithms, and next-gen warheads are reigniting fears we hoped were left behind in the Cold War. Today in The Bunker , Seth Thévoz is joined by Shashank Joshi , defence editor at The Economist , to explore the key players driving a new era of nuclear weaponry. • We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to https://indeed.com/bunker for £100 s...

He ignores court rulings. He scatters “executive orders” like confetti. He orders the machinery of the state to persecute his enemies, he uses troops against private citizens, and the Supreme Court says he’s above the law. Is there any meaningful sense in which Donald Trump is NOT a now a monarch who can rule by fiat? UCL Politics professor Andrew Rudalevige and Andrew Harrison discuss the dauntin...

OpenAI’s founders claimed they wanted to build ethical artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. So why is it now taking a $200 million contract from the US military? Today in The Bunker, Alex von Tunzelmann is joined by Mariarosaria Taddeo , Professor of Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies at Oxford University, to find out what A.I. means for the future of warfare.  • We are sponso...