The Bunker – News without the nonsense

There’s a world going on underground. Ethnographer, archaeologist and author of the eerily prescient Bunker: Building For The End Times BRADLEY GARRETT is fascinated by tunnels, chambers and hidden realms – and what drives people to populate them. He tells Ros Taylor about the allure of the subterranean, the hidden city under Wiltshire – and the Doomsday Preppers who wanted to buy it – and the coc...

Priti Patel might be trying to stoke fears with her ludicrous ‘Clandestine Channel Threat Commander’ but as the Brexit madness recedes, is the environment for immigrants moving in an inexorably more liberal direction? Professor Jonathan Portes of KCL takes Ian Dunt on a deep dive into the economic realities of immigration and finds that not only will we need more immigrants to deal with the post-C...

Some good stuff DID get done during the chaotic COVID Parliament that’s just ended. Walthamstow MP STELLA CREASY tells Ayesha Hazarika about her fight to get misogyny reclassified as a hate crime as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill, why women have been left out of the Government’s COVID response… and all the gigs that the Right Honourable Member for Indie Rock missed because of the Pandemic.  “The...

When JOHN HUME died earlier this week, presidents and political leaders across the spectrum eulogised him as nothing less than the father of peace in Northern Ireland. How did this quiet, determined man find a way to bring about the impossible, and sideline violence within Irish nationalism? South Belfast MP Claire Hanna tells Naomi Smith why John Hume is her political hero, and what we can still...

With the Grand Reopening leading inevitably to the Great Re-Locking , is No.10’s rule-by-snappy-slogan no longer fit for purpose? Has Boris Johnson’s back-scratching Dissolution Honours finally made Lords Reform inevitable – and should we fear a shake-up if it happens? And our special guest, former minister and rebellious leader of the Gaukward Squad David Gauke , gives perhaps the most entertaini...

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were supposed to overturn the tyranny of the banks and give consumers new power over their money. This financial Wild West is still plagued with fraud, scams, pyramid schemes and doomed start-ups. But as entrepreneur, investor and follower of the crypto/blockchain market PHILLIP NUNN explains, the “Internet of Money” is coming whether governments like it or not. Can i...

If we’re stuck with a hard right government for the next four years, how should progressives best use this time? Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation MIATTA FAHNBULLEH talks to Alex Andreou about the opportunities amid the chaos, how it’s impossible to triangulate where the Johnson government is going, and what Starmer needs to do right now to build the platform that can win in 2024.  “...

Britain can’t wait for the Government’s Public Inquiry into COVID. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus is seizing the initiative and examining every aspect of the crisis. Its chair, Lib Dem MP and leadership candidate LAYLA MORAN, explains to Naomi Smith how MPs are outpacing the government in understanding the virus, why mental health is the neglected aspect of COVID, and how we can...

From unmasking suspects in the Salisbury poisoning to exposing money laundering and Russian involvement in the shooting down of flight MH-17, investigative collective Bellingcat is at the forefront of a new kind of investigative journalism. Founder ELIOT HIGGINS explains to Dorian Lynskey how “open source” investigations work – why conventional media still doesn’t understand the reach of state dis...

Is the summer tourist season already a write-off for Europe – and will the traditional foreign holiday become history? Are you ready to start paying more tax from the age of 40 to fund your own social care ? And as COVID continues to hollow out city centres, is urban living on the way out? Ros Taylor, Ahir Shah and special guest Yasmeen Serhan of The Atlantic join Andrew Harrison for this week’s f...

“We’ve been kettled with our own thoughts.” Comedy writer and friend of the podcast JASON HAZELEY –  Screenwipe writer and co-creator of everything from the grown-up Ladybird books to Philomena Cunk – talks to Ian Dunt about what the pandemic has done to TV, the live sitcom that is Great Britain, and the dismal poverty of Boris Johnson’s terrible, feeble jokes.  “Have I Got News For You in lockdow...

We’re conditioned to think that economic development will get faster and faster. But it turns out that many key indicators from population growth to GDP expansion are slowing down. DANNY DORLING , social geographer and author of Slowdown: The End Of The Great Acceleration and Inequality And The 1% , talks to Ros Taylor about the coming Great Deceleration – why inequality is clearly the strongest i...

A pop career is for life. Art explorer, national treasure and former Pulp frontman JARVIS COCKER talks to Andrew Harrison about his return to the music fray with new band Jarv Is… and new album Beyond The Pale . On the agenda: the musical concerns of the mature gentleman, what celebrity does to the unwary mind, the legacy of ‘Common People’, and how pop is a way of asking yourself the questions yo...

Can Europe really build back better after the pandemic? How does the EU’s response to COVID look when you’re one of Britain’s former MEPs? Molly Scott Cato , former Green Party MEP and the party’s current Brexit and Finance spokesperson, joins Alex Andreou to talk over plus the Russia Report, the financial conduits that make corruption possible, and what we do now that Vote Leave runs the country ...

“In Moscow, inquiry closes YOU.” As the Russia Report confirms the Conservatives’ wilful blind eye to Putin’s interference in UK elections, where do we go from here? If we rage about the Russians supposedly tipping the Referendum or the General Election, are we looking at the wrong things? Plus, why the left needs to stop gloating over The Guardian’s money woes … and hands off Bill Gates . Can’t a...

Coronavirus has put women out of work more frequently than men, led to a spike in domestic violence, pushed women’s healthcare down the list of priorities, and set the scene for a mental health crisis for women. Yet politicians appear blind to the pandemic’s gendered consequences. Dr   Clare Wenham, Assistant Professor of Global Health Policy at the LSE, talks to Helen Lewis about how the pandemic...

The Intelligence report into Russian interference in British elections and the Referendum is finally published this week – but what will it mean? Why are Brexiters so keen to discredit it? And are Tory backbenchers finally growing a spine? Ian Dunt sets the scene for what looks like a momentous week in British politics.  “Eskimos supposedly have a thousand words for snow – and the Russian governme...

Hold the front podcast page! The infamous Russia Report could well come out next week. What will it reveal? The Guardian ’s Russia correspondent LUKE HARDING , author of Shadow State : Murder, Mayhem And Russia’s Remaking Of The West and first British journalist to be expelled from Russia since the end of the Cold War, joins Dorian Lynskey to look at what Putin really wants. How did Russia influen...

Why do former democrats and intellectuals so often make the squalid journey from liberalism to hardline nationalism? Historian ANNE APPLEBAUM ’s new book Twilight Of Democracy : The Failure Of Politics And The Parting Of Friends describes why once-liberal people make deals with devils of demagoguery. She talks to Nina Schick about the revenge of the second-raters, the lure of performative rage, ho...

As America faces the dire prospect of a Trump second term, the hardest-hitting, most brutal and effective anti-Trump ads come from the rebel Republicans of Super PAC the Lincoln Project . Former George W Bush and John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt of The Lincoln Project joins us to explain the scale of the stakes, the depths of Trump’s betrayal, and what British listeners can do to unseat Americ...

How will transport in cities change after the COVID wave subsides? Will financial worries make high-frequency public transport a thing of the past, just when we need it most? And will we even WANT to live in cities any more? Jonn Elledge of urban nerdery site CityMetric talks to Ros Taylor about the future of trains, buses and bikes… and why we might have missed the COVID opportunity to rethink tr...

Not everyone with COVID ends up in hospital. Sufferers are beginning to report a disturbing post-viral syndrome of deep, extended fatigue, weakness, “brain fog”, anxiety and weird physical sensations that they’re calling “Long COVID”. Paul Garner of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine tells Naomi Smith about his own strange and debilitating ten-week experience with Long COVID – and explains...

COVID’s impact on people with multiple sclerosis has been cruel beyond even the privations experienced by the rest of us. Our panelist Ros Taylor has never spoken about her own MS diagnosis before. In conversation with David Martin , CEO of the MS Trust , she discusses the astonishing hardships faced by people with MS during the pandemic, why all charities are facing a potential extinction event… ...

Donald Trump annihilates the language of democracy even as he campaigns to destroy its institutions – and in this, he’s just like Putin. In a podcast unlike any we’ve recorded (complete with live thunderstorms), the author of Surviving Autocracy MASHA GESSEN talks to Dorian Lynskey about the lies designed to purely to bully, the perils of the next Trump… and why we might come out of the populist m...

As #BlackLivesMatter puts law enforcement under microscope worldwide, policing expert and former Met officer Peter Kirkham gives the view from inside British policing. Plus, what does Beijing’s draconian crackdown on free speech mean for Hong Kong citizens – and will Britain’s offer of BNO passports make any difference? And what are you going to spend your £500 government stimulus voucher on?  Nin...