The Bunker – News without the nonsense

The COVID pandemic has seen us bombarded with statistics like never before, - case numbers, excess deaths and vaccination rates. But behind the numbers, is there another story waiting to be told? Professor David Spiegelhalter joins Ros Taylor to talk about his new book COVID By Numbers, which shines a new light on the pandemic from the hardest hit countries, to the benefits of different vaccines,...

Is Plan B really happening or what? Does the Government grasp the magnitude of the NHS crisis that’s coming? And is there any way to get the performatively unmasked to mask up again? Plus, as the wheels continue to fall off Facebook, is there any fixing social media? And we look at next year’s Unboxed event, the rebadged, don’t-mention-leaving-the-EU Festival of Brexit. Special guest ZOE WILLIAMS...

Metaphor time! Rishi Sunak strains over a painful Budget while Conservative MPs are hammered for voting to allow raw sewage to be released into the sea. What’s coming in the Budget and will Johnson’s aversion to bad news push Plan B back – meaning that, yet again, the Government acts too late on a rising COVID wave? Alex Andreou starts your week.  “Imagine if raw sewage became the defining issue o...

t’s often said that the crisis in Western democracy is caused by those left-behind, but is the greatest threat to security actually a bored middle-class? University Professor and author of Our Own Worst Enemy Tom Nichols talks to Arthur Snell about why unchecked narcissism is to blame for rising illiberalism, which factors are accelerating our democratic demise, and why building coalitions is our...

Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk This week: Snooker star turned cosmic DJ STEVE DAVIS tells about his love for out-there avant garde rock and the time he took Frank Warren to see Magma. We review spice’n’sandals epic DUNE and Wes Anderson’s paean to the golden age of magazines, THE FRENCH DISPATCH – and speak to star LÉA SEYDOUX. John Har...

It’s COVID Groundhog Day with cases spiking, the Government dithering and the NHS under critical pressure all over again. As Sajid Javid warns of 100,000 cases a day soon, health commentator Roy Lilley tells us why the Government’s“ Plan B” is in disarray. How fast should they move to tighter restrictions? And can they make it stick with a population that believes the pandemic is done? “What is it...

Is gene-editing – replacing sections of DNA to make plants and animals more fertile or resistant to disease – really our escape route from the threats of climate change and population growth? Since Brexit the British Government has been tearing up tight EU legislation on the practice, with DEFRA now allowing it for crops. But do we really understand the difference between gene editing and modifica...

The horrific murder of Sir David Amess has put MPs’ personal security into sharp relief. But should the Government tighten rules for online speech which, however ugly, seems to have little to do with this outrage? Plus, climate change deniers the Global Warming Policy Forum rebrand as Net Zero Watch. Will claiming that carbon reduction is too expensive succeed where denying it outright failed? And...

Children lost an average of 115 days of schooling under last year’s lockdowns, but that doesn’t capture the scale of trauma and dislocation caused to children by the Government’s bungled handling of the pandemic. Former Children’s Commissioner for England Anne Longfield tells Ros Taylor about the hidden consequences of COVID policy for kids – how the pandemic was an opportunity to exploiters inclu...

A second MP in five years is killed during the performance of constituency duties. Will the death of Sir David Amess change the temperature of political debate? Plus Dominic Raab’s plan to overrule independent courts, the brewing PCR test scandal , and coal-funded senator Joe Manchin destroys Joe Biden’s clean energy programme. Ros Taylor starts your week. “Police protection at surgeries is all ve...

The Anglo-Saxons represent one of the most vital and important periods in English history, but then why do we know so very little about them? Marc Morris , historian and author of The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England , takes Nick Cohen on a journey though one of England’s most fascinating chapters, and how their influence is still felt today. “We’re taught about the Anglo-Saxon...

We’ve got a bit less music on this week’s podcast than we’d like but you can hear it in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk This week: As the third season of dynastic epic Succession begins on Sky, what makes it the most compelling thing on TV? After 40 years in the game, Duran Duran make a genuinely fantastic album: we listen to Future Past. And a real find on Netflix in unreal...

Cities are slowly coming back to life after COVID. But has the pandemic permanently changed our urban spaces, and how we live within them? Co-author of Survival of the City and Harvard University Professor Edward L. Glaeser talks to Ros Taylor about how commuting has always been defined by class divides, whether fifteen minute cities could work…and why we need a “NATO of healthcare”.  “Once we’re...

Enigmatic Californian tech investor and libertarian Peter Thiel is best known for his controversial ‘spy tech’ company Palantir and for enabling Hulk Hogan to sue gossip site Gawker out of business. But as new book The Contrarian shows, Thiel has always had bigger ambitions to use tech to sideline government itself. Author Max Chafkin tells Andrew Harrison about the Randian ideas that propelled Th...

As Britain surges forward into the 1950s, the Prime Minister goes on holiday – again. Will fuel costs, supply chains, staff shortages and reskilling just, you know, sort themselves out? Or do we need to reacquaint ourselves with stagflation ? Plus, can the fallout from the sentencing of Sarah Everard’s murderer and the increasing focus on misogyny in society really become a moment of change? Speci...

Unelected Brexit panjandrum David Frost gets ready to blow up the Northern Ireland deal that he and Johnson sold to the public. Is Poland really shaping up to leave the EU? The first ‘Covid: Lessons Learned’ report looms into view. Plus bizarre elections in the Czech Republic, Facebook in the dock and an old-fashioned nuclear spy scandal. Arthur Snell starts your week.  “Frost and Johnson ’ s stra...

DANGER, SPOILERS! James Bond finally returns to cinemas in a world where questions about sexism, racism and Britishness have seldom been more pointed. Is there a place for a suave, womanising emissary of British power in the modern world? Is it time to reassess the role of Bond in British culture? Regulars and Bond fiends Ros Taylor and Arthur Snell talk to Ian Kinane , editor of the International...

Remember you can hear the music from every Culture Bunker in full on our rolling playlist .  Joining us for this week’s tour de pop culture are guests J. Willgoose, leader of avant pop band Public Service Broadcasting , and author Jenny Colgan. On the agenda: Could you play the Squid Game ? We look at the Netflix breakout hit. Does new documentary The Beatles And India turn the tablas on our ideas...

Antisemitism remains one of the Labour Party’s most painful problems. It’s an issue with deep roots, dragged up by Corbyn, and left to Starmer to deal with. Trade unionist Daniel Randall , author of Confronting Antisemitism on the Left, and sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris , join Dorian Lynskey to discuss what distinguishes left from right wing anti-Jewish racism, and what can be done about it. “The...

Should we feel more compassion towards men who are send to public schools? And what do boarding school books reveal about the emotions of society’s elites? With fellow students like Boris Johnson and David Cameron, Richard Beard ’s latest book, Sad Little Men, explores his time at school. He tells Ros Taylor why private school only gives kids a partial education, how sexist attitudes linger beyond...

Britain staggers into another Winter of Discontent but the atmosphere in the Conservative Party Conference is serenely unworried, says our woman on the spot Marie le Conte. Can anything penetrate Boris Johnson’s reality-distortion field? Plus special guest Annette Dittert , London bureau chief of Germany’s TV channel ARD, explains what the German elections really mean – and how Germany thinks Brex...

As the Conservatives convene for their Manchester conference, are there sufficient supplies of Churchillian cosplay, blather about levelling up and performative woke-bashing to cover up their failings on supply lines, fuel, COVID and the economy? Will anyone dare mention the “B” word? Plus the Pandora Papers lift the lid on big money chicanery, anger over police misogyny grows, and who will win th...

In a groundbreaking study, a team of scientists at the University of Dusseldorf have grown mini brains , each with their own sets of “eyes” that can detect light. Dr Jay Gopalakrishnan , the leader of the project, spoke to Alex Andreou about the extraordinary research going on the field of these “ organoids ”, miniature versions of organs that scientists can grow in the lab from stem cells, and wh...

Remember you can hear the music from every Culture Bunker in full on our rolling playlist . On this week’s pop culture roundtable we meet John Cooper Clarke , the William Blake of Salford, on the occasion of his new collection of poems – and he reads us one too. Plus, have Apple TV+ successfully filmed the unfilmable with their adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation ? Is “all the men are dead” co...

The Red Wall has been the backbone of Labour's vote in the Midlands and the North of England. But in 2019, it dramatically turned blue for the first time in living memory. So what do we get wrong about the Red Wall? Nick Cohen talks to the Financial Times’ Sebastian Payne about his new book, Broken Heartlands, his time in ten constituencies across the North, and what Labour needs to do to recover...