The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Looking back at the big stories of the past seven days… Dolly Parton’s death leaves the world brokenhearted but reflecting on a true rarity: someone rich, famous and powerful who never stopped being a good human being. Plus: Meta caves in an $18bn settlement of claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children. Andy Burnham visits Zelensky in Kyiv – and jams to The Smiths. And in Alaska… Dan Sullivan supports Dan Sullivan as he defeats Dan Sullivan in the Senate race. Zoë Grünewald and Andrew Harrison round up the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  

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Hot Take Time Machine is back with Paper Cuts alumni Miranda Sawyer, Jonn Elledge and Jacob Jarvis sniffing out the strangest, worst – and occasionally best – opinions of the past month. 

On this episode: Dolly Parton’s death shocks the world, Harry and Meghan’s media storm rages on, the treatment of Jason Arday comes under scrutiny and the Mail’s Liz Jones has another mega moan. 

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We’re living through another technological revolution, but it’s easy to take for granted how much of the world around us was once a radical new invention. Author, columnist and Oh God, What Now? regular Jonn Elledge joins Alex von Tunzelmann to reveal the 31 inventions that made modern life possible. They answer questions such as: Before windows, did people just live in stinking darkness? Are trees really the “most useful technology” a city can invest in? And are buses slowly morphing into… crabs?  

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Do great leaders actually matter? Or are they just being carried along by bigger forces – from timing to sheer dumb luck? It’s the question that underpins almost every argument about politics, business and sport. And it’s one that Jared Diamond, the UCLA professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has spent years trying to answer. He joins Emma Kennedy to reveal when leaders can – and cannot – bring about effective change. 

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Burnham’s summer is coming to an end, how has his start in office gone? And what problems does he have to look forward to? Plus, there are new hacking concerns for the UK and Trump is back on another tariff tirade… Gavin Esler and Ros Taylor discuss this as they look at the key stories to look out for in the coming days.  

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor with Gavin Esler. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Mus...

Looking back on the big stories of the past seven days…  Donald Trump is once again cosying up to his dictator bestie Kim Jong Un – what’s he got up his sleeve? Plus: Burnham fleshes out plans to tackle homelessness and Zelenskyy’s former defence minister calls for Ukraine election… Rafael Behr and Jacob Jarvis discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  

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Written and presented by Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. Producer: James Liddell. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny...

How did we get the modern Middle East? Who shaped it and does the term even make sense in our current era? Seth Thévoz speaks to Simon Sebag Montefiore author of The Cauldron: the Making of the Modern Middle East about how the region has been changed over time and what key players led us to what we know today.  

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We live in a surveillance world, but what is it doing to us? To give one small example, hackers figured out Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s movements by tracking his bodyguard’s exercise data. From CCTV cameras on high streets to smart doorbells at home, surveillance has become an inescapable part of modern life – something we both demand and fear. How did we get this way? And what have we given up in exchange? Professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford Ruben Andersson tells Zing Tsjeng how Big Security rose to power – and whether it’s failing to...

Silicon Valley’s overlords have completely lost their minds. Gil Durán, Kamala Harris’ former communications director and now a journalist, says Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and the rest of the tech oligarchs have a severe case of “billonaire psychosis” – where unchecked wealth and influence detach them from reality. Now democracy itself is getting in the way of their own bizarre, apocalyptic visions. Are we stuck with their vision of the future? Is pushing back against them futile? Will a vote for the Democrats make this all go away? And is money really the root of all evil? Gil joins Emma...

Setting out the stories of the week ahead… The shocking death of Jason Arday reignites questions about the press’s relentless pursuit of the story, Cambridge University and Simon & Schuster’s failure to properly look into the academic’s life story, and the general public’s prurient curiosity. Was it a legitimate story investigation, a persecution or even more complex? Plus: as the heatwave breaks, what have we learned? Trump treats the Navy as a floating septic tank. And the Premier League is back, thank God. 

Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison look at the stories that will shape...

Looking back on the big stories of the past week… Will all of Nigel Farage’s problems come back to haunt him now his Clacton distraction is over? Andy Burnham tries to solve the unsolveable problem of early prisoner release. Is Reform’s own prisons “fix” as unhinged as it sounds? And what the hell was going on with Donald Trump’s secret plane switch via catering truck?  

Plus… Britons are dazzled by the solar eclipse, A-level results day breaks more records and Harry Potter fans save Dobby the House Elf’s “grave”. Andrew Harrison and Rafael Behr discuss th...

First an OpenAI artificial intelligence model hacked a tech start-up called Hugging Face. Then one of Anthropic’s creations escaped its testing environment and carried out cyberattacks on its own. Now Facebook owner Meta has reported a similar breach by its own AI. What is going on?! 

Members of Congress and even AI workers are calling for an urgent slowdown, with Senator Bernie Sanders warning of “potentially cataclysmic results” if we can’t get a handle on the technology. Could escaped AI hack self-driving vehicles, erode the financial system, wreck utilities and worse? Are we genuinely on the cu...

America’s hunt for al-Qaeda defined the 2000s in an epochal War on Terror that consumed $8 trillion. But the story didn’t end when Osama bin Laden and his successor Ayman al-Zawahiri were killed. The reconstituted terrorist organisation branched out into affiliate organisations, especially in Africa, and it now acts more like a criminal cartel. Has al-Qaeda evolved to become more resilient? And when terrorist groups go quiet, are they plotting under the radar or simply too weak to act? Graeme Wood, staff writer at The Atlantic and political science lecturer at Yale University, joins Alex von Tunzelmann to exam...

How do languages die? Who’s behind the death of languages from Ghana’s Dagbani to regional Italian dialects? And does it matter if they decay? Almost half of our 7,000 languages are expected to go extinct by the next century and “linguicide”, the death of a language, is to blame. It can be intentional, such as the Turkish government’s repression of Kurds or less intentional, due to simple neglect. So can anything be done to save languages from dying? Journalist, author and broadcaster Sophia Smith Galer joins Emma Kennedy to discuss the impending linguistic extinction.  

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It’s Farage vs. Binface at this week’s Clacton by-election, what has this campaign taught us? Plus, Burnham is on tour and Trump finds himself in a new conundrum. Gavin Elser joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the news to look out for this week.  

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Looking back on the big stories of the past week… Kemi Badenoch faces fury after defending a former neo-Nazi’s decision to stand as a Tory councillor. What was she thinking? Burnham amends his early prisoner release plan. Is he really a “soft-touch” on crime? Plus: Farage and Lowe’s enemies-to-lovers character arc deepens, Cambridge professor Jason Arday steps down over plagiarism concerns and a SpaceX rocket crashes into the moon… Andrew Harrison and Jonn Elledge discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  

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Sick of watching Shiv Roy or Tanya McQuoid strut around luxury properties? You’re not alone. For years, depictions of extreme wealth have dominated the airwaves with shows like Succession and The White Lotus having a huge cultural impact. But lately watching rich people has started to feel a bit… mundane. Enter Beef, The Bear, DTF St Louis and Margo’s Got Money Troubles and, with it, TV’s sudden interest in seeing ordinary people just getting by. But why? And why has it taken so long? The New Yorker’s television critic Inkoo Kang joins Dorian Lynskey to unpack the...

Europe is secretly at war – and it has been for a long time. Across the continent, 34 disputed territories remain with places where the conflicts of empire still linger and rival nations continue to claim the same land. Some of these borderlands have become strategic prizes for leaders like Putin and Erdoğan, revealing how wars can drag on in perpetuity and how states can exist without recognition. But how much do these unresolved conflicts shape European politics today? Veteran foreign correspondent Hannah Lucinda Smith joins Jonn Elledge to reveal why these forgotten frontiers may be far more important than mos...

Donald Trump is making more money than any sitting US president in history – and his eldest son isn’t about to let Dad have all the fun… Through his investment firm 1789 Capital, Donald Trump Jr is cashing in by backing companies that often stand to benefit from government policy.  

So how is he turning political access into profit? What does it reveal about the financial ties between the White House and the president's inner circle? And is it blatant corruption or is he exploiting a system with few guardrails? The New York Times’ finance reporter Maureen Farrell joins Jaco...

Andy Burnham is pushing his new devolution agenda and suggested it could mean we need a written constitution. How might that work? Plus, there’s a new mayor in Manchester, what did the by-election show us? Alex von Tunzelmann talks Jacob Jarvis through the news to look out for in the next few days.  

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Looking back on the big stories of the past week… The Burnham bounce is driving the right completely bonkers. How long can his momentum last – and can anyone knock the PM off his pedestal? Plus: Donald Trump held talks with Zelensky and Netanyahu after delivering an unhinged eulogy for the late Senator Lindsey Graham. What did we learn from these meetings? Rafael Behr joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the biggest, strangest and most under-reported stories of the week.  

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Putin thought his war on Ukraine would restore Russia to greatness in just ten days. Instead, after four and a half years of futile slaughter and almost half a million Russian soldiers killed, the unthinkable seems to be coming true. Could Russia lose in Ukraine? Could Putin go down with it? And could defeat break up the Russian Federation – the “last empire” – itself? Russian native and professor in the Department of International Relations at the Central European University in Vienna Alexander Etkind joins Alex von Tunzelmann to discuss what happens next. 

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A lab accident, a bio-attack, a global pandemic. Is this how it all ends? If you weren’t worried enough about nuclear war, the next doomsday weapon is a sinister invisible threat – and it’s a living thing. After her astonishing book Nuclear War: A Scenario reignited the global conversation about the reality of nuclear weapons, Annie Jacobson’s new book Biological War: A Scenario charts how a fast-moving pathogen could bring humanity swiftly to its knees.  

She spoke to US government officials, military advisers, virologists and trawled through a mountain of declassified material to build the scenar...

Steve Gallant knows what’s wrong with Britain's prisons. He spent over 16 years in jail for murder and then – on his very first day release – he helped stop the 2019 London Bridge terror attack, an act of bravery which won him the Queen’s Gallantry Medal and a Royal Prerogative of Mercy. 

Now a writer, speaker and prison safety consultant, he talks to Zoë Grünewald about Britain’s prison crisis; the violence, self-harm, drug use and organised crime inside prison; the collapse of education and rehabilitation; and the jails which could run out of space by November. How quickly m...

Setting up the stories of the next seven days… France and Spain suffer apocalyptic fires and mass evacuations. Will this be the tipping point for European climate policy? Andy Burnham starts to tackle the big stuff in his second week as PM, starting with an issue that has defeated successive governments: social care. Plus the aftermath of the Berlin Pride terror attack, the Greater Manchester mayoral election, the Cockroach Protests in India… and who decided the Spider-Man movie was the standard bearer of anti-woke? Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison look at the stories that will shape the week ahead.  

Looking back on the big stories of the past seven days… Did Andy Burnham’s first week as PM go as planned? A raging Elon Musk says he’s going to make his own Odyssey with A.I. and it’ll be better than Christopher Nolan’s and he’s not mad, OK?? (Plus bonus Musk interview from The Economist). Donald Trump brings back his election interference claims, this time pointing fingers at China. And an OpenAI model breaks out containment to hack another A.I. on its own – has artificial intelligence already started going rogue? 

Seth Thévoz joi...

“You can’t have a black Helen of Troy!” “You can’t have trans actors as Greek warriors!” Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of The Odyssey answered the far-right hecklers and Elon Musk fanboys with a colossal opening weekend and critical acclaim. But is it truly a masterpiece? Does it capture the essence of Homer’s epic poem or simplify and Hollywoodise it? And what does the movie leave out? Dedicated classicist Rachel Cunliffe of the New Statesman and Oh God, What Now? talks over the original hero’s journey with simple swineherd Andrew Harrison. 

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Marine Le Pen is expected to make her fourth run at the French presidency sporting a unique accessory: an ankle tag. The scandal-plagued National Rally leader has gained ground with each attempt and the far-right may never have been so close to power. So how did we get here? From the Dreyfus affair and the collapse of the French military in WW2 to the rise of the Le Pen dynasty, Enda O’Doherty – author of The Dark Side of France: Thirteen Chapters in the History of the French Far Right – joins Alex von Tunzelmann to trace the country’s complica...

Nigel Farage launched a “people versus establishment” by-election in Clacton – but which side is he REALLY on? The Reform leader claims to speak for ordinary people but the privately-educated former banker has pocketed over £2 million in outside earnings since becoming an MP, accepted a £5m gift from a crypto mega-donor and has taken more cash from “Posh” George Cottrell – a convicted fraudster. If that’s not the establishment, what is? Political scientist and lecturer at the University of Oxford Dr Vladimir Bortun joins Zoë Grünewald to decipher which side Farage is on.  

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Burnham is finally going to become Prime Minister – but can he really move faster than his predecessor? And will simply communicating better make all that much difference? Gavin Esler joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss this and the other key stories to look out for this week.

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Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis with Gavin Esler. Audio production: SimonWilliams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music byKenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Looking back on the big stories of the past seven days… An astonishing World Cup rollercoaster ends in crushing disappointment for England against Argentina – but it all seems unimportant next to the repercussions from the horrific killing of Ann Widdecombe. Are Reform’s claims that rival parties and the media are “inciting” violence making a tense situation worse? Plus, Keir Starmer opens his farewell tour with his last-ever PMQs – how will he be remembered? And former DJ, nightclub owner and publicist for Pulp Anneliese Midgley is tipped for a top job under Andy Burnham. Zoë Grünewald joins Andrew Harrison to discus...

It’s been branded “the scariest company on the planet” and it is busy weaving itself into the fabric of Britain’s NHS, defence establishment and beyond. Peter Thiel’s Palantir has a terrible reputation – but do its products even work as billed? As MPs call for Palantir’s £330m NHS contract to be scrapped and fears grow over Big Brother-style data sharing, we talk to Democracy for Sale founder Peter Geoghegan whose investigation into Palantir reveals a company that’s a lot better at schmoozing than delivery – and how Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm helped land the NHS deal.

How did a c...

Nigel Farage is under fire over his £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire – but does British politics have a wider money problem? MPs earn a salary of just shy of £100,000 but for many that's just a sliver of the total pay packet. Side hustles, political gifts and personal donations can add millions more a year. So how does it all work – and where’s the line? Dr. Sam Power of the University of Bristol, one of the country’s leading experts on party political funding and corruption, joins Seth Thévoz to decipher who really pays your MP. 

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“Please rate this book.” “What was your experience at Tesco like?” “Did this carrot meet your expectations?”… Star ratings are everywhere and they’re ruining the world. You can’t order a curry, watch a film or buy a kettle without having to check what others said about it – and being pestered to give your review. 

We’ve turned the entire planet into a customer satisfaction survey, but how did it happen? With a limitless choice on offer, are star ratings more help or hindrance? Can we trust them – and how can you spot a scam write-up? Benji Wilson, aut...

Setting up the stories of the next seven days… Police say there is no reason to suspect that the murder of Anne Widdecombe was politically motivated, but it’s not stopping Nigel Farage and Reform from trying to weaponise the killing. Plus, what’s on Andy Burnham’s plate as he prepares to move into No.10? The hard right lose their sense of humour over Count Binface. The US and Iran are at it again. And England are two games away from actually, possibly, really, genuinely winning the World Cup. The Guardian’s Rafael Behr and Andrew Harrison look at the sto...

Nigel Farage’s by-election stunt has blown up in his face – but could he really lose to Count Binface? Donald Trump has gone back to bombing and declared the Iran ceasefire “over”. Will this Groundhog Day ever end? And Prince Harry lost his landmark privacy case against the Daily Mail’s publisher – will more cases follow or is this it? Alex von Tunzelmann joins Jacob Jarvis to discuss the biggest, strangest and under-reported stories of the week.  

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Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis. Producer: James Liddell. Audio producti...

Columnists need critics too… Hot Take Time Machine is back with Paper Cuts alumni Miranda Sawyer, Jonn Elledge and Jacob Jarvis picking apart the most bizarre takes in the op-edaverse.  

On this episode: Andy Burnham’s wardrobe causes a stir, Kwasi Kwarteng – yes, the man who nearly exploded the economy – warns against “Red Ed” Miliband becoming chancellor, one Telegraph columnist has a solution for the Dartmoor ponies (eating them) and a Times writer takes a kinky cruise.  

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Is Britain really as free of corruption as we think? This year the UK posted its lowest-ever score in a global corruption index. High-level scandals like Peter Mandelson’s Epstein ties and Peter Murrell embezzling from the SNP – and less conspicuous instances of fraud and backhanders – are eating into our self-image as rule-followers. And the man who might be Prime Minister keeps changing his explanation for a £5m gift from a crypto baron. 

Are these isolated political crises, or does the rot in our system run deeper? Professor of anti-corruption practice at the University of Sussex Robert Barrington...

Tech shapes our world, and Stanford University is Silicon Valley’s training ground. But what really goes on in the place that gave us Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel – the richest university in human history? As a student reporter, Stanford undergraduate Theo Baker’s work forced Stanford’s president to resign. Now his new book How To Rule The World exposes the intense and amoral culture of a place where talent fights for access to untold funds; oligarchs mine the world’s sharpest young minds for talent; and ethical concerns dissolve in the light of money.

Seth Thé...

Setting up the stories of the next seven days… As England fans shake off their Mexico hangover, another cash scandal hits Farage, who denies “doing any wrongdoing” (?). How will Naughty Nigel handle new revelations about undeclared funding from convicted criminal “Posh George” Cottrell, while still dealing with the headache of his £5m gift from a crypto baron?

Plus: NATO’s conference in Ankara; crunch time for Marine le Pen; Trump names yet another thing after himself; and England face Norway on Saturday. Gavin Esler and Andrew Harrison cast the runes of the week ahead. (How come we never thought...