The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Peace in Northern Ireland has not looked this fragile in decades. Violence erupted in Belfast and elsewhere with both Brexit and resurgent gangs to blame. The duped DUP have replaced their leader with a creationist evangelical. And it’s all happening against the backdrop of increasing support for a United Ireland. In a Two Naomis special, leader of the Alliance Party and MLA for East Belfast Naomi...

As the Indian coronavirus variant takes a foothold, is the UK’s grand unlocking on June 21st under threat? And as foreign holidays return, will Brits head for the airports or stay grounded? Plus, we speak to solicitor and human rights activist Tawseef Khan about his new book The Muslim Problem: Why We’re Wrong About Islam and Why It Matters. Plus: Could a one-off wealth tax pay the world’s hefty C...

Britain greets the latest milestone of indoor pubs and restaurants with trepidation, not celebration. Is Boris Johnson preparing to shift the blame for another surge – possibly from the India Variant – onto the public? Plus, what’s driving the terrifying violence in Israel and Palestine, and how will that play out? ARTHUR SNELL is here to start your week.  • “People who gave the Government a chanc...

Infamous anonymous blogger FLEET STREET FOX lifted the lid on the seedy world of tabloid journalism in the Leveson years – then in 2013 unmasked herself as Mirror columnist Susie Boniface. She tells Ian Dunt how being a total pain in the arse is the way to get into journalism, where the loathing of hacks really comes from… and why the credibility of print goes all the way back to Babylonian tax in...

The vastly wealthy Sackler family are known as respectable patrons of the arts, but the story behind their philanthropy is a dark one. The Sacklers made their billions from OxyContin or “Hillbilly Heroin”, the $35m prescription drug that precipitated America’s opioid crisis – an epidemic that has killed half a million people. Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain: The Secret History of th...

As the dust settles, what are these bizarre elections really telling us about how British politics work? Electoral consultant Kenny Campbell , a former journalist and editor of the Metro newspaper, goes deep into the entrails of Elections ’21 with Alex Andreou. Does Labour have to wean itself off its attachment to the shattered Red Wall? Might levelling up the North provoke a backlash in vulnerabl...

As Labour find a way to make a bad week worse, we look at the long-term consequences of Starmer vs. Rayner . Plus, we might be on the eve of the biggest economic boom since 1948 but will the boom play in Hartlepool? The Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance in trouble. And would it be better for Britain if we stopped worrying and let London balloon until it becomes Mega-City N1 (and other postcodes)? “...

How will Labour’s post-election Hell Weekend and the sacking-not-sacking of Angela Rayner play out this week? How badly is Starmer damaged? And what sort of a Queen’s Speech can we expect from a Government that has no reason to fear opposition? IAN DUNT ruins… sorry, starts your week.  • “Starmer has come out of these elections absolutely savaged.”  • “If you’re an urban voter, it looks like Labou...

Tax havens aren’t all desert islands with palm trees. One of the worst offenders is rainy Britain. So are we wrong focus on offshore tax chicanery? And what can we do about it at home as well as away? Chair of the Tax Justice Network Alex Cobham tells Arthur Snell about how tax injustice goes beyond beaches and palm trees – and the implications for businesses in post-Brexit Britain.  www.taxjustic...

What if the Prime Minister was corrupt, and nobody cared? As Labour steels itself for a tough election day, we look at where sleaze is and isn’t cutting through. Plus, as the COVID horror in India worsens, Ahir Shah tells us what his friends and family in India are experiencing – and the extend of Modi’s culpability. And a Wild Idea for the future: Universal Basic Capital . Rather than tinkering w...

Enforced isolation, powerlessness, boredom, even emasculation – lockdown was the perfect petri dish to create a pandemic of online gambling which affects young people worse than most. The Director of Clean Up Gambling Matt Zarb-Cousin was a problem gambler himself and betting almost destroyed his life. He talks to Andrew Harrison about how sponsorship and ads normalise dangerous betting behaviour,...

As votes loom in Hartlepool, Scotland, Wales and in local authorities and metro mayor regions across England, is Keir Starmer’s message on Government sleaze finally cutting through? And what will it all mean for independence in Scotland and Wales? Ros Taylor is here to start your week. “ When the media just hang on the Prime Minister ’ s every word the result is this decrepitude of politics.”. “ I...

Can the classics tell us the truth about Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow and the Marvel pantheon? Robert Eaglestone , Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London, uses the Marvel Cinematic Universe to explain Aristotle’s Poetics to his students. He sits down with fellow Marvelite Andrew Harrison to discuss the mythic resonances of the MCU....

Is Britain really the hopelessly split society that we fear? The good news is that as the Brexit rubble settles, our common ground is growing, and Britain is more up for serious political change than almost any other Western democracy. Tim Dixon , co-founder of pro-consensus pressure group More In Common and former advisor to Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard in Australia, talks to Ros Taylor about the...

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 might be the closest the world has ever come to actual nuclear war – but do we really understand what went on between Kennedy, the USA and Kruschev’s USSR? Ukraine-born Harvard Professor of History Serhii Plokhy tells Jude Rogers about his new book Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis – and what this fatal moment in the confrontation between Eas...

Whoever wins, we lose… As Dominic Cummings takes a wrecking ball to the Prime Minister he made, writer Emma Kennedy joins us to ask who will win this particular Battle of the Bastards. Plus, if social media is so toxic that Premier League footballers are boycotting it, should we end anonymity online? And are quiz shows to blame for the state of politics?  “ Let ’ s all grab a sun lounger and enjoy...

It’s a classic Alien vs Predator scenario as disgruntled supervillain Dominic Cummings resurfaces with the receipts on Johnson’s squalid behaviour over lockdown, leaks and the No.11 flat. What will go down worse for the embattled Prime Minister? The news that he’d rather see “bodies piled high in their thousands” than a third lockdown, or Carrie’s taste in gold wallpaper? Alex Andreou is here to s...

From Cameron to cabinet, the Greensill Capital scandal has spiralled into corruption chaos. But now numerous instances of shady practice are joining hands. Special guests Cynthia O’Murchú and Andy Bounds who cover Greensill and more for the Financial Times join us to connect the dots between Greensill, Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG/Liberty Steel empire and the surprise approval of a new deep coal mine in Cu...

The Perseverance Rover is bringing us stunningly detailed images of Mars, but do we really need to go there? Are we anywhere nearer proof of life on other worlds? And is Elon Musk’s dream of a million-person Mars base by the end of the century feasible – or desirable? Alok Jha, The Economist ’s Science Correspondent and host of The Jab podcast talks space-sceptic Ros Taylor through the pros and co...

THIS PODCAST WAS RECORDED BEFORE CHELSEA AND MAN CITY LEFT THE COMPETITION : English football clubs triggered shockwaves of revulsion at the weekend when they announced their plans to join a €4bn breakaway ‘Super League’. Is the plan starting to crack, and can English football be saved? The man who broke the story, Chief Sports Reporter for The Times Martyn Ziegler , tells Andrew Harrison how a gr...

The Greensill scandal continues to leak dodginess like a busted fridge. Is lobbying really the issue, or is it really about the corrupt Old Boys’ Network ? Joe Biden withdraws US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years: what does it mean? And we look at the new Carey Mulligan movie Promising Young Woman , an intense and provocative rape revenge fantasy, and what it says about Hollywood after #MeToo...

As the sleaze scandal spreads, will the rising tide of corruption start lapping at Boris Johnson’s feet? Beer Garden Britain thinks COVID is done but as cases rise alarmingly in India and Brazil, will we need to think again? Alexei Navalny faces death in prison for opposing Putin. And will that revolting European Super League actually kill football? Naomi Smith is here to start your week.  “ We ne...

When there’s a “heated debate” about racism on Good Morning Britain, you’ll often see Kehinde Andrews , Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, tussling with Toby Young and Nigel Farage and bringing uncomfortable arguments about white supremacy into Middle England’s living rooms. What does he get from it? He talks to Jude Rogers about the Sewell Report, his book The New Age Of Em...

What kind of person crashes a £3.6bn business, shattering the life savings of 400,000 people? When Britain’s most famous fund manager Neil Woodford went down in flames in 2019 it was a personal humiliation for a “rock star investor” that the City thought was infallible. Owen Walker , the FT’s European Banking Correspondent and author of Built On A Lie : The Rise And Fall Of Neil Woodford And The F...

The English public school is one of the country’s strangest and often most sinister institutions. James Scudamore , author of the moving and gripping novel of memory, friendship and abuse English Monsters , talks to Arthur Snell about his own experience with the mad and petty regime of the English boarding school. How did this culture spread the “profound damage” of men who’d seen true horror in w...