The Bunker – News without the nonsense

• Get 20% off annual Patreon support for The Bunker in our Black Friday sale . The perfect gift to ask for! MPs will debate assisted dying ahead of a significant vote on the matter this week – who is arguing for and against? What questions are there over the bill? Ros Taylor is joined by Hannah Fearn to discuss the split in the Cabinet over this legislation and more broadly. Plus, the latest from...

• Get 20% off annual Patreon support for The Bunker in our Black Friday sale . The perfect gift to ask for! Donald Trump has secured a “trifecta” as he heads to the White House, while the House and Senate are due to be controlled by Republicans. So, can the checks and balances of the US system work at all? Can he circumvent everything – or will anyone push back? Dr. Casey Burgat, director of the L...

Donald Trump seems like a hardline ally of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right. But could his unpredictable nature and need to make big news end the nightmare in Gaza on terms that don’t suit Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition? The Economist’s Israel correspondent Anshel Pfeffer talks to Andrew Harrison about the true nature of the war, its wider effects, and the ending that Trump might impose...

• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support for The Bunker in our Black Friday sale . The perfect gift to ask for! Elon Musk is the new head of DOGE – the Department of Government Efficiency – alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, because two people doing one job is very efficient. But despite its fancy name, which bolsters its status immensely, is this idea actually anything new? And will this pitch to run the U...

• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support for The Bunker. The perfect gift to ask for! Carbon capture is a highly controversial technology – but that hasn’t stopped governments ploughing huge sums of money into it. How does it work – and how effective is it? Does it do little more than let major polluters carry on as normal, by saying this will offset their emissions? And, even if it isn’t a cure, ca...

Keir Starmer has vowed to make London the AI capital of the world. But is that truly possible? Silicon Valley continues to dominate the rapidly growing industry and with Trump promising to repeal Biden's AI regulations, the UK could struggle to keep up. In today’s episode of The Bunker , Dr. Kate Devlin speaks with Sana Khareghani , former Chair of the UK’s Office for AI, to explore whether London...

As people flee X, or Twitter for the rest of us, what is Musk up to – and how’s his bromance (sorry) with Trump going? Then in world news – what will be happening at the G20, and how is the incoming US president already warping discussions? Gavin Esler joins Jacob Jarvis to talk through the stories to watch out for this week.  We’re on BlueSky! – follow us here . We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to...

Donald Trump feels like a TV character – and if you’re a Sopranos fan, you might have noticed a similarity with Tony Soprano. Both are imposing egomaniacs, desperate to control their families, get more power and indulge themselves along the way. Jacob Jarvis is joined by former Obama speechwriter and fellow Sopranos superfan David Litt to discuss the comparisons and what the HBO show can teach us...

Freeports! They were going to be a huge Brexit benefit (they weren’t). Boris Johnson said we couldn’t have them while we were in the EU (he was lying). Labour was going to announce more in the latest Budget and then… didn’t (“cock up in the comms,” it says here). But what are they? Do tax-free zones really benefit deprived areas? Or are they havens for money-laundering and tax avoidance?   Trade e...

How did the food we eat get so political? Are men really refusing to eat strawberries because they’re too ‘girly’? From avocados to artisan coffee – our taste in food can reveal more than we might realise. Today on The Bunker, Emma Kennedy sits down with Pen Vogler, author of Stuffed: A Political History of What We Eat and Why It Matters , to explore how class, innovation, and tradition have linke...

When a jury cleared a firearms officer of murdering Black Londoner Chris Kaba, it triggered protests and intense scrutiny of the Met. Should charges ever have been brought? Was the killing a product of racist policing? Did Kaba’s gangland connections – concealed during the trial – change the picture of the case? And will officers stop volunteering for firearms duty if they could face prosecution?...

Donald Trump starts building his cabinet, only sycophants need apply and score-settling is on the agenda. Will Britain need to choose between the EU and Trump’s Orange Empire in the trade wars that are coming? Plus, antisemitic football violence in Amsterdam, the slow-motion collapse of Germany’s government, and Manchester United’s new manager is the latest victim of the end of Freedom of Movement...

Recorded before we knew the election result would come so quickly – we wondered: what is it actually like to move into the White House?      Moving is always a nightmare. In January, a new president – we now know will be Trump – will head into the White House – what will the big move be like? Alex von Tunzelmann speaks to Matthew Costello , chief education officer at the White House Historical Ass...

As Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, the world is gearing up for another term full of big promises and unconventional moves. Trump’s plans could shake things up at home and abroad – so what will they mean for the economy in America and beyond? Today in The Bunker , Coco Khan is joined by Dr. Kara Reynolds, professor of economics at American University in Washington, D.C., to...

Out early for everyone! Americans face the reality of four more years under Donald Trump. But how did we get here? What went right for Trump and what went so wrong for Kamala Harris? Gavin Esler is joined by political experts Michael Cullinane , U.S. History Professor at Dickinson State University , and Clodagh Harrington , American politics lecturer at the University of Cork , to unpack why Harri...

Falling circulations, trivial stories, shrinking budgets, squandered trust? It’s worse than that, says US media analyst and academic Jeff Jarvis . A combination of self-seeking billionaire owners and complacent, outdated reporting meant that papers and TV failed to alert Americans to Trump’s real threat: the advent of actual fascism in the USA.  He tells Andrew Harrison how the US press “sanewashe...

From Obama’s effortless cool aura to Zelenskyy’s stoic defiance, charm and charisma have shown themselves to be game-changers in politics. Often dismissed as superficial, these qualities can shift public opinion, steer policy, and even swing elections. Today on The Bunker, Zing Tsjeng speaks with Julia Sonnevend , author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics , to explore the p...

There’s only one story this week: the US Presidential Election, with Harris and Trump neck-and-neck and democracy itself at stake. Special guest Nikki McCann Ramírez of our partner pod American Friction sets out what will decide the final confrontation in the key swing states – how Trump is already preparing the ground for another big lie about a stolen election – and why the fight for America’s f...

Rachel Reeves’ first budget has caused quite the stir. But what aspects were really surprising – and important? What was risky? And what issues didn’t it address? Ros Taylor discusses all this and more with Giles Wilkes , senior fellow at the Institute for Government.   • “It was very much an old Labour budget.” • “It was the first honest attempt at saying, ‘If you want this, it’s got to be paid f...

As science answers more and more questions, you’d imagine our obsession with the paranormal would diminish. Yet we’re still obsessed with the apparently “unexplained”. Andrew Harrison speaks to Chris French, author of The Science of Weird Shit: Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal , to discuss why we want to believe – or trick ourselves into believing – in the supernatural, even if it terrifies us...

With a new president due to be elected in America, what impact would each candidate have on the war in Ukraine? Rafael Behr speaks to Simon Shuster, reporter for Time and author of The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky , about what the outcome in the US might mean – and to discuss the state of the conflict more broadly, as well as how Ukraine...

Last week’s BRICS Summit was Vladimir Putin latest ploy to strengthen an anti-western alliance. But despite the united front, behind the scenes, cracks are forming in Russia's alliances. Today on The Bunker , Chris Jones is joined by Dr. Ian Garner to explore what this mega-summit means for Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the world.  We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 spo...

It’s a week of big decisions: Labour’s first budget, the Tories choose their leader, and the last desperate week of campaigning in the Presidential Election. Can Rachel Reeves reset the new government’s course? What will shift the dial in Harris vs Trump? And how about that Runcorn MP allegedly thumping someone in the street? Ros Taylor sets out the week ahead with Andrew Harrison .  We are sponso...

The future is here—or is it? Last week, Tesla’s “We, Robot” event introduced us to Optimus , Elon Musk’s AI-powered humanoid helpers. These futuristic machines grabbed the spotlight but also raised urgent questions about the true cost of our fascination with automation. Today on The Bunker , Chris Jones is joined by Dr. Julie Carpenter, author of the upcoming book The Naked Android , to discuss wh...

The race between Trump and Harris is so tight that nobody wants to call it. But from afar, it can be hard to understand how the polls are possibly so tight. What’s made them so close, can anything change them, and are any of them helpful in understanding the election race? Jacob Jarvis asks Andrew Rudalevige, professor of government at Bowdoin College, why it’s all so close.  We are sponsored by I...