The Bunker – News without the nonsense

The government is placing new limits on crypto and overseas donations — but is this about national security or is Starmer just worried about Farage’s fundraising power? Plus: Boris Johnson dubs himself the “Napoleon of Notting Hill”, and Trump’s 15-point peace plan falls flat. Jacob Jarvis is joined by Seth Thévoz to round up the biggest stories from the past week.  www.patreon.com/bunkercast   Wr...

Every day we’re swamped with weird takes on everything from the Iran war to the malevolence of pigeons. Now Paper Cuts survivors Miranda Sawyer and Jonn Elledge join Jacob Jarvis to discuss the weirdest (and occasionally best) columns of the month… so you don’t have to.  This time: Terrible Iran takes, energy bill nightmares and a loving look at Adrian Chiles’ latest offerings.  • Spotted a column...

George Orwell’s vision of a world of constant surveillance, where authoritarians rule by destroying the very concept of objective truth, is coming true in ways the author never predicted – and many ways he did. A new documentary film, Orwell: 2+2=5 by the acclaimed Haitian director Raoul Peck, connects the dots between 1984 , Animal Farm , Big Data and mass manipulation in the digital age. Our own...

Canada slapped down Trump’s bizarre fantasy of taking over the country when it elected Mark Carney as PM, and Canadians are still boycotting travel to the USA. But MAGA has not given up on its ambition of annexing the North. And they’re targeting the province of Alberta, known as “The Texas of the North” – a place that’s innately right-wing, suspicious of government, resentful of the rest of the c...

Setting out the stories of the next seven days… Trump’s directionless assault on Iran reaches a decisive moment. Does the President declare arbitrary victory or press on? And with its regime renewed, its grip on the world economy tightening, and the US now abandoning oil sanctions, is Iran actually winning? Plus: the new BBC Director General, a possible antisemitic hate crime in Golders Green, and...

Angela Rayner sparked speculation this week after warning Labour is “running out of time”. Is this the first sign of a leadership bid, or media overexcitement? Plus: a meningitis outbreak in Kent raises fresh public health concerns, and as the conflict in Iran enters its fourth week, is Donald Trump losing control of the narrative? Jacob Jarvis is joined by Alex von Tunzelmann to unpack a packed w...

With war in Ukraine, the US almost our enemy, Brexit Britain now semi-detached and Putin waiting in the wings, the continent that rebuilt itself from the ruins of two world wars now finds its founding settlement under unprecedented pressure. Does Europe need to go back to find its future? Historian Roderick Beaton , author of Europe: A New History , joins Alex von Tunzelmann to trace how Europe wa...

Elon Musk wants much more than just a radicalised far-right population, a hotline to political power and a civil war in Britain. As Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff , authors of Muskism: A Guide For The Perplexed explain, he’s building no less than a dark new way for society to function. Under ‘Muskism’, technology envelopes every aspect of life, states and corporations are indistinguishable, and h...

With Trump’s war to (he claims) end Iran’s nuclear programme pushing the world to the brink, the question of who has the Bomb and why feels more urgent than ever. But the untold story of how nuclear weaponry proliferated and shaped our world is even stranger than most of us know. Historian David Holloway , author of Nuclear Weapons: An International History , explores how the Bomb reshaped global...

Setting up the stories of the next seven days… As Iran blockades the Straits of Hormuz and 20% of the world’s oil supply, can Trump cajole/bully other nations into clearing up the mess he caused? Including Britain? Plus: Ed Davey goes full Oppenheimer and calls for Britain to build its own nukes. Rachel Reeves tries to kickstart the economy (again). And the last word on the bitter “Should we repla...

Lord Mandelson is back in the spotlight after newly released documents revealed Keir Starmer was warned about his links to Jeffrey Epstein before appointing him ambassador. Plus: we unpack Donald Trump’s U-turn on Iran, Zoë Grünewald explains why Kemi Badenoch is her loser of the week, and finally Jacob Jarvis asks what removal of hereditary peers in the House of Lords will change about UK politic...

As artificial intelligence systems become more powerful, what crimes should we prepare for it to commit? Can the law keep up with code? And when A.I. is misused, who’s actually responsible? Today on The Bunker, Kate Devlin is joined by Dr Federica Fedorczyk, Research Fellow at University of Oxford and an A.I. ethics specialist, to unpack how artificial intelligence is already challenging the crimi...

A shock-and-awe attack on a Middle East country based on a faulty premise. No clear rationale, no exit strategy and a premature declaration of victory. Thousands of deaths with no clear end in sight. By attacking Iran, is Trump just re-running America’s disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq? Or is this time even more poorly-planned and even worse? Dr Renad Mansour of Chatham House’s Middle East and Nor...

Read any paper to the right of The Guardian and you’ll see furious condemnation of “tax raids” on “grieving families”, and a Labour plot to destroy the Middle Class and farmers via the “hated” inheritance tax “trap”. Yet IHT makes up only 0.7% of Government revenue and fewer than 5% of people leave enough to be subject to it. Why is Britain neurotic about a tax that so few pay? And with huge inher...

Trump’s war in Iran continues and Britain’s right wing gang are desperate for Starmer to get more involved despite the obvious reasons not to. Why are they cheerleading what could be another disastrous and drawn out conflict in the Middle East? Rafael Behr joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss what’s going on and how the UK may or may not get further involved.  www.patreon.com/bunkercast     Advertisers!...

Rounding up the stories of the last seven days…  Trump shatters international law, triggers a conflagration across the Middle East and insults Keir Starmer into the bargain. Also: Shabana Mahmood doubles down on immigration harshness after the Gorton & Denton disaster. The Fall of the House of Brewdog. And who’s been visiting Salford Lads’ Club? Jonn Elledge revisits the week just gone with An...

Elon Musk is betting big on artificial intelligence. But is this a visionary leap forward, or a high-stakes gamble? His latest move is to merge SpaceX with his A.I. lab xAI, consolidating his companies’ finances and laying the groundwork for something even more ambitious: satellite data centres designed to push A.I. development into space. Zoë Grünewald is joined by The Economist ’s US technology...

Last week Zia Yusuf, floated a headline-grabbing idea: a British version of America’s deeply unpopular ICE. Today on The Bunker , Zoë Grünewald speaks to Sunder Katwala , director of British Future and author of How to be a Patriot , to unpack what a “British ICE” would actually mean in practice and how the politics of deportation are fast becoming a race to the bottom. • Buy Sunder’s book How to...

Is Trump using America’s 250th anniversary to rebrand the USA in his own gaudy, aggressive, white nationalist image? There’ll be a “Patriot Games” high school athletics tournament, quickly dubbed America’s Hunger Games. Commemorative quarter coins have been scrubbed of any “woke” content. There’ll be mixed martial arts on the White House lawn. And Trump’s organisers of the celebrations are chargin...

Trump’s attacks on Iran have thrown the Middle East into chaos and left the world on the brink of what feels like an existential crisis. What is he doing and why now? And how will this situation develop and worsen in the coming days? Rafael Behr joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss this and the latest British politics updates in Start Your Week.    Back us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast   Follow...

Donald Trump delivered a record-length State of the Union address this week, in a marathon rant that has become the new normal. Plus, we explore the looming special educational needs reforms in the UK and check in on Kim Jong Un. And also, the weird story of an army of robot vacuum cleaners… Jacob Jarvis is joined by The Guardian’s Rafael Behr to comb over another wild week.  www.patreon.com/bunke...

We read the columns and the pundits so you don’t have to…  On this month’s round-up of the weirdest, worst and occasionally best opinion columns: Brutal takes on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from Camilla Long (Sunday Times) and Sophie Money-Coutts (Telegraph) while Brendan O’Neill (who else?). Plus: The Telegraph defends child labour, the Mail rages against fare-dodgers, and why the I’s Kate Lister...

Barack Obama set the internet alight when he declared on a podcast that aliens are “real”. However, the former US president later insisted that, while in office, he saw no evidence of this and that he was just answering a speed round question. Once the preserve of late-night radio and fringe forums, UFOs are now discussed in Congress, scrutinised by the Pentagon and casually referenced by presiden...

The sudden ousting of two of China’s top military leaders has sparked intense speculation about what it says about Xi Jinping’s grip on power. From Mao to today, the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly removed senior figures accused of corruption, incompetence, or simply becoming inconvenient. What’s going on this time? Today on The Bunker, Gavin Esler is joined by Daria Impiombato , Senior Ana...

Trump is causing chaos again with a tariff tantrum while Starmer’s Labour faces a major test at the upcoming Gorton and Denton byelection. Gavin Esler joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the news to look out for in the week ahead.  www.patreon.com/bunkercast         Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis with Gavin Esler. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andre...