The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Over 130,000 people were killed in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, with most deaths concentrated in Bosnia. But 26 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement, nationalist tensions are re-emerging between Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Bosniak President Bakir Izetbegovic. So are we on the brink of another war in the Balkans - and did it ever end in the first place? Jelena Sofronijevic talks to j...

Around the world democratic values have been in decline, with Hong Kong’s struggle against Beijing one of the clearest examples. Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law was Hong Kong’s youngest legislative councillor, until he was arrested for speaking his mind. Now living in exile here in Britain, he talks to Arthur Snell about his new book Freedom: How we lose it, and how we fight back, the reasons fo...

This week’s panel show out early for Patreon people… And you can hear our new series DOOMSDAY WATCH here: https://kite.link/doomsday   The sleaze revelations may be ebbing, but the PM is still under sustained attack from his own MPs. Will a bouncing new Johnson baby save Christmas for the Conservatives? Jelena Sofronijevic joins to discuss what it’s like to graduate into a post-COVID job market an...

Northern Powerhouse trains might be derailed, but as the CBI convenes across the country, levelling up is back on the agenda. Could Keir Starmer be on track to dismantle the Government’s shoddy Integrated Rail Plan? And Austria returns to COVID lockdown, what will this mean for booster shots and mandatory vaccination at home? Plus Priti Patel faces pressure over the rise in dinghys in Dover, and d...

Running a marathon is no easy feat, but to run one in under 3 hours puts you in the top 5% of runners worldwide. Comedian Paul Tonkinson details his gruelling yet moving journey to break the 3-hour mark in his book 26.2 Miles to Happiness: A Comedian’s Tale of Running, Red Wine and Redemption. He sits down with fellow runner Nick Cohen to talk about the trials and tribulations of beating one of ru...

Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk What a difference Adele makes. As Adele’s new album 30 comes out, music journalist EAMONN FORDE joins us to discuss “daydreamers” and “divorce, babes”. Plus film critic ANNA SMITH on THE POWER OF THE DOG, GRUNGE music doc FREAKSCENE, the story of Dinosaur Jr. - and with the re-release of SLADE IN FLAME on...

COVID may have suspended parliamentary debate, but important decisions were still being taken behind the scenes. So how did we do politics during the pandemic, and how can we do better? Ros Taylor talks to Aveek Bhattacharya , chief economist of the Social Market Foundation, about co-editing his new book, Political Philosophy in a Pandemic, “zombie governments,” and whether COVID shaming is ever a...

The Republican Party might be the party of Donald Trump, but how did it get to this place of uncompromising groups with irreconcilable demands? And is something similar about to hit the Democrats? Professor Samuel L. Popkin , academic, consulting analyst in five Democratic Presidential campaigns and author of Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics , chats to Dori...

The curtain has fallen on Glasgow’s climate conference, but is the overtime pact agreed enough to steer the world away from disaster? Plus, as allegations of sleaze continue to pile up, political writer STEVE RICHARDS joins us to discuss whether this is the Government Britain has ever seen. And with stories and hot takes coming at us from every angle these days, how can we best deal with news fati...

COP26 came to a close at the weekend, but did India and China scupper an opportunity for real progress on climate change? Does the Glasgow pact go far enough? Plus, a horrific terror attack in Liverpool mars Remembrance Day, what do we know so far? And as sleaze allegations continue to come out, is the Johnson premiership now on a downward trajectory? Naomi Smith and Ros Taylor take you through th...

In England, 50% of the land is owned by just 1% of the population, but how did such a small minority come to control such a large amount of countryside? And what can we do about it? Guy Shrubsole , policy coordinator at Rewilding Britain and author of Who Owns England, chats to Nick Cohen about England’s dark past when it comes to land ownership, and his manifesto for how to open up our countrysid...

Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk The artist otherwise known as Malcolm Tucker and the Twelfth Doctor Who, PETER CAPALDI, makes an album with pal DR ROBERT of The Blow Monkeys. The Hogarth of the iPhone COLD WAR STEVE joins us to discuss his bleakly hilarious visions of Plague Island. And new albums from DAMON ALBARN and upcoming psychedel...

Albania in the 1980s was the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe. It was difficult to visit, and a place of poverty, executions and secret police, but for LSE politics professor Lea Ypi it was also home. She talks to Alex Andreou about her astonishing memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, which details her childhood in one of Europe’s most repressive countries, what came afterwards, an...

When you think about the gig economy, you probably imagine an Uber driver. But one in seven Brits are part of the gig economy, including some teachers and doctors. So what’s behind this global phenomenon? Ros Taylor talks to Rest of World editor Peter Guest about their vast report on how workers in the global South get a worse deal, why women get lower ratings than men, and giving a meaningful pla...

British-born US intelligence analyst FIONA HILL, America’s top Russia expert, became an overnight hero when she demolished Donald Trump’s Ukraine hoax before the House Intelligence Committee in 2019. In a fascinating conversation she tells us what it’s like to go up against a strongman’s political machine – and why Trumpism is still dangerous. Plus, is the tide of populism starting to ebb? And wha...

As Johnson scuttles away from the Owen Paterson debacle and fresh sleaze oozes out, will new Commons regulations mean that MPs have to get by on just the one job like some sort of cave dwellers? Plus, brace yourself for trade war as Lord Frost (no doubt with great regret) prepares to trigger the Article 16 he’s been gagging for since December. And is your poppy leaf at the right angle? Alex Andreo...

George Orwell was a keen gardener, but did his love of nature influence his politics? Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses planted at his Hertfordshire cottage, writer Rebecca Solnit talks to Dorian Lynskey about her new book Orwell’s Roses, which looks at how Orwell’s involvement with plants was a catalyst for his work as a writer and antifascist. “When I was young non-fiction was n...

Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk The Wordsworth of Bury GUY GARVEY of Elbow joins us to talk about their transcendent new album ‘Flying Dream 1’, the remarkable story of how he and his wife nursed his mother-in-law Diana Rigg through her last months, and how music fixes everything. And JUDE ROGERS helps us examine that ABBA album, remarka...

The phrase ‘Net Zero’ has become increasingly prominent in our discourse around climate change, with most countries and businesses pledging to be carbon neutral by 2050. But what will a day in a net zero world look like? What sort of jobs will we be doing? What kind of food will we eat? And how will nights out change? Journalist Jonn Elledge , editor of New Food Magazine Bethan Grylls and Leeds Un...

As the world banks its hopes on COP26, we talk live from the conference to the FT’s SIMON MUNDY about his astonishing and sobering book ‘Race For Tomorrow’ – a tour of the frontline of the climate struggle that reads like a thriller. Meanwhile the UK Government concentrates on the far bigger issue of fighting France over FISH. Of course he does! And we watch the BBC’s shocking documentary about th...

As climate change becomes a bigger issue, more companies are trying to prove they’re eco-friendly, but are they actually as green as they claim? Alice Bell , climate campaigner and author of Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis, tells Yasmeen Serhan about the shady practice of greenwashing, where firms mislead consumers about their climate credentials. Which companies are the wo...

Climate change is the existential challenge of our time – but do we fully understand the depth and complexity of human influence over the planet’s temperature? In today’s COP26 special, Dr ELLA GILBERT , climate scientist from the University of Reading, takes Justin Quirk into the aspects of global heating that the media seldom foreground, from the cataclysmic impact of the cement industry to the...

As COP26 kicks off in Glasgow, what do you need to know about a summit that’s being described as the “last chance” for global action on climate change? New Scientist chief reporter Adam Vaughan joins Andrew Harrison to talk all about Britain’s biggest event since the Olympics, from the key players and attendees, to the thorny issues and major sticking points. “COP is very different from other dipl...

Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk Original Essex Man BILLY BRAGG joins us to discuss how the pandemic changed pop, politics and his haircut, on the very day his new album The Million Things That Never Happened comes out. Plus film critic Linda Marric joins us to look at Edgar Wright’s bizarre West End horrorfest LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, new mus...

As the human race reaches new heights of scientific understanding, why then does it seem to be losing its mind? Are humans inherently irrational beings? Professor Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist and author of the new book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, talks to Alex Andreou about how irrationality occurs within our society, and why we need to embrace the notion th...