The Bunker – News without the nonsense

For many he’s the great leader that Labour should have had. Now that he’s left frontline politics, Alan Johnson is trying his hand at writing fiction with his debut thriller The Late Train to Gipsy Hill out now. In a wide-ranging interview, he talks to Andrew Harrison about his love of suspense novels, whether the book’s plot alludes to the Litvinenko murder, Starmer’s first year in charge, Labour...

British-Turkish novelist and academic Elif Shafak is an international feminist icon followed by legions of passionate readers. She tells Dorian Lynskey about her latest novel The Island of Missing Trees , a story of identity, belonging and love that takes place between Cyprus and London – and how she too finds comfort in two places, her home city of Istanbul and her adopted home in the UK. Listen...

Does the year we were born really shape us people? Are Gen X Snowflakes really battling Baby Boomers in an intergenerational war? Friend of the podcast Professor Bobby Duffy returns with Ros Taylor to discuss his latest book Generations , why age cohorts aren’t so consistent, and how COVID has changed Gen Z forever… “The cliches around generations are presented as cohort characteristics. But Gen Z...

If we stopped trying to do everything, would we finally get chance to do what counts? Do to-do lists create anything but meaningless pressure? Can we ever really get everything done? Journalist Oliver Burkeman talks to Dorian Lynskey about how to answer the ultimate time management problem – the question of how best to use our brief moment on the planet – in his new book Four Thousand Weeks.  “We’...

What sort of psychological shock with the fall of Afghanistan cause to the British establishment’s self-image? Will the country again became an incubator of terrorism? And how the hell is Dominic “Sun Lounger” Raab still in a job? Special guest SHIRAZ MAHER is the world authority on militant jihadism. He joins us to explain what the Taliban conquest of Afghanistan means.  “We have a culture from t...

Recriminations worsen over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the UK’s indolent response to the refugee crisis. Can Dominic Raab survive as Foreign Secretary – and what does the debacle mean for Joe Biden’s presidency? Plus, get ready for COVID at the centre of healthcare forever. And does the Brexit-COVID logistics crisis mean that Christmas is already cancelled? Naomi Smith starts your week....

Journalist, filmmaker and author Sarfraz Manzoor grew up in two worlds, a son of working-class Pakistani immigrants who told him he’d never be accepted by the white English – yet he immersed himself in Western pop culture and built a life in it. By 2016 he’d become anxious that the multicultural Britain that made him was falling apart. He talks to Alex Andreou about his powerful new book THEY: Wha...

What is the situation really like on the ground in Afghanistan, after the Taliban’s astonishingly swift takeover? Our panelist Arthur Snell talks to one of his contacts, presently in hiding in Kabul. We have chosen not identify them for their own safety.  https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast “Kabul has been left without anything.”  “Everything is closed down. You would think it is the Stone Age in K...

World War II seemed to mark the end of American conservatism, and a new liberal age. Then Reagan came along – and we’re still living with the consequences. What explains the dominance of conservatism in modern American politics? Historian Rick Perlstein talks to Dorian Lynskey about his new book, Reaganland , the finale of a three-part saga about the cutthroat strategies of the conservatives behin...

The fall of Kabul to the Taliban has placed thousands of people in mortal danger and traumatised the entire Western security establishment. How did we get it so wrong, and what happens next? Also, the future of COVID : Leeds University Global Health Professor Garrett W. Brown joins us to set out the next pandemic and why the “Pasteurian Paradigm” won’t save us. Plus Labour expels Ken Loach , what...

The Afghan Government’s sudden collapse and the return of Taliban rule have both shocked the international community. What happens next? What can Afghan civilians and women especially expect from their new rulers? And just how big a catastrophe is this for the Biden administration? Arthur Snell , who has spent time in Helmand Province himself, lays out the consequences of a day of brutal reverse f...

Will it take a satirist to fix Britain’s busted politics? Armando Iannucci – writer of The Thick Of It, The Day Today and Veep – is looking for emergency fixes in the new podcast series Westminster Reimagined. He and producer Anoosh Chakelian talk to former SPAD Ayesha Hazarika about the forces that are breaking our politics. Why are things so bad? What will it take to fix them? And does Malcolm T...

Aegean neighbours Greece and Turkey have been rivals for centuries – and both countries are prone to forgetting the “unfortunate episodes” in their relations with the other. Can they ever get past their infamous regional enmity? Alex Andreou talks to Turkish author and columnist Defne Suman –   whose latest novel, The Silence of Scheherazade , looks at a flashpoint of the Greek-Turkish relationshi...

For many of us, the warm light of the fridge was one of the few consolations of lockdown. But now we’re living in a harsh new reality of intermittently empty supermarket shelves and farms that are struggling to adapt to Brexit, COVID, and climate change. So how do we make our food supply chains healthier and more secure? Sarah K Mock , agriculture journalist and author of Farm: And Other F Words ,...

As pandemic politics start to ebb away, Johnson’s ratings are down among the Tory faithful and his MPs are growing restive. Is this a time to pick a fight with Rishi Sunak? Plus, will Apple’s photo-scanning tech trap more than child abusers? Spain makes glorifying Franco a crime. And why do we let polls lead politics? Adam Payne , Westminster and Brexit reporter for PoliticsHome, is our guest.  “W...

This week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report could signal our last chance to stop the global climate running out of control. Will the world take it? Plus: vaccine passports continue to go round in circles. We try to talk about GCSE and A-level results without saying “grade inflation”. And Labour starts its traditional pre-conference programme of beating itself up. Alex Andreou flag...

Recorded at 11pm on Saturday night and already our GB medals toll is out of date…  At the end of the most controversial Olympics in almost a century, Financial Times Sports Editor MURAD AHMED calls us from Tokyo to lift the curtain on what it all means. Is the International Olympics Committee finally getting the message on athletes’ mental health and political commitments? Did the “Russian Olympic...

From Modi’s India to Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Erdogan’s Turkey, the far right is on the rise around the world. Are we really on the brink of resurgent fascism? And if so, how do we fight it? Political journalist Paul Mason tells Dorian Lynskey about his radical blueprint for defeating the extreme right, outlined in his new book How to Stop Fascism. Why is trust in democracy collapsing around the wor...

Cameron and Osborne’s “Golden Era” of cosying up to China turned out to be a golden error, as Beijing dug deep into British life, politics, and technology. Investigative journalist Sam Dunning tells Arthur Snell how the Conservatives’ strings-free get-rich-quick strategy turned into a trap for British business and academia. While the Tories trumpet free speech on campus, students who want talk abo...

Now that the pandemic may be abating, the Government decides that the best people to pay the bill are… those pesky, hard-up young people. Climate change and student activist Phoebe Hanson joins us to explain what it’s like to be mis-sold the student experience by universities that act like businesses but won’t treat you like a customer. Plus, how the planned changes to the Official Secrets Act wil...

Will bribes for Deliveroo and Uber be enough to persuade recalcitrant youth to get their jabs? Are we nearing herd immunity on COVID? Is Tony Blair to blame for food shortages because his university drive produced a generation of egghead boffins who can’t drive an HGV? And with thousands of kids catastrophically behind on their schooling, the Government has the solution: bring back Latin. Ros Tayl...

What if you discovered that your Dad was living a double life, and really worked in the CIA? Does managing The Police prepare you for advising the Pentagon? From his chateau in France, maverick music manager Miles Copeland chats to Dorian Lynskey about his memoirs Two Steps Forward, One Step Back , moving from the Middle East and London, and how his record label IRS launched the careers of The Go-...

The wrongful conviction of hundreds of subpostmasters for false accounting was so shocking that even Boris Johnson as called it one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in our history. Why did Post Office management cover up the truth about its flawed software, even after innocent people went to prison? As the Government sets aside £233m in interim compensation, criminal law expert Dr Hannah Qui...

COVID is a paradise of hindsight – a world of self-appointed experts who tell us what should have happened – and sometimes rewriting what did happen to suit themselves. But what about those people who could see what was going to happen?  On March 10 2020, writer Tomas Pueyo posted an article called Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now – it made strong argument for rapid lockdowns at a time when Boris...

It’s time for Parliament’s end of term report card. Does anyone at all get an A, or should everyone be forced to repeat the year in disgrace? Special guest Thangam Debbonaire MP , Shadow Leader of the Commons, joins us to explain the meaning of Dawn Butler calling Boris Johnson a liar in the House; whether Rees-Mogg actually casts a shadow; what Labour is doing right and wrong… and her as-yet unpu...