The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Outdoor “mingling” is back but as the Government bets all on the vaccine, are they ignoring the danger of new COVID variants? And if/when it all goes wrong, will it somehow be Europe’s fault again? Plus the possible Labour reshuffle, the SNP vs the Alba Party and what Johnson’s affair with Jennifer Arcuri really means. Ian Dunt explains the week ahead. “The only Government strategy is the vaccine, and praying that no variants blow it to smithereens” “The only way the Government can countenance giving vaccines to Ireland is under a narrative of sticking it to Europe” “If anything good can come from Boris Johnson being PM, it will be a modernisation of life in Number 10”.” Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Brexit opening a Pandora’s Box of irrational nationalism in England, and Scotland and Northern Ireland heading to the exit door, the break-up of the United Kingdom is no longer a weird fantasy but a real possibility. Nick Cohen talks to the writer, broadcaster and card-carrying Scot Gavin Esler about his new book How Britain Ends, and the forces that could pull Britain apart. Can the Union be saved? Would an independent Scotland really be welcomed into the EU? And is Britain in danger of becoming a failed state?  “I’ve had people telling me ‘We English aren’t nationalistic – that’s why we’re BETTER than other people’…” – Gavin Esler “The central role of British foreign policy since the Spanish Armada was to stop Europe uniting against us. And Brexit has achieved exactly that.” – Nick Cohen “What would post-imperial Britain’s role be? It wouldn’t BE post-Imperial Britain. It would be England alone.” – Gavin Esler “Brexit has led to the collapse of an English myth that we’re a tolerant, pragmatic people not given to wild ideas.” – Nick Cohen “Thatcher said Northern Ireland was as British as Finchley. Under Boris Johnson, in customs terms it’s as British as France.” – Gavin Esler  Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we ready to live alongside artificial minds? And why do we still harbour a Terminator-style fear of vengeful machines? Oxford University Professor of Computer Science Michael Wooldridge, author of The Road to Conscious Machines, says we are on the brink of a great transformation in artificial intelligence. He talks to Alex Andreou about deepmind superhuman gamer bots, debunking our fear of Frankenstein’s creation, and why automation means more than robot butlers.  “We are with AI where nuclear physicists were in the early 1900s… There is so much unexplored territory.” “We’re nothing special in the universe. We’re just a bunch of atoms bumping up against each other.”   “I don’t lose sleep over the Skynet scenario. We don’t need AI to make mistakes with nuclear weapons.”  “The Frankenstein story embodies our deep-rooted fear of creating something, and then losing control of it.”  Presented by Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Constitutions are the rulebooks of government, but how does each country get its own peculiar arrangements? Linda Colley, author of The Gun, The Ship, And The Pen: War, Constitutions And The Making Of The Modern World, tells Ros Taylor about the extraordinary circumstances – from Napoleon to Catherine the Great to America’s Founding Fathers – that produced the operating systems for states. Why was America’s sacred Constitution less of a high-minded document and more of “a grimly necessary plan by a group of men who felt themselves under siege”? And does a British Constitution even really exist?  “The US Constitution was driven by short-term necessity rather than highfalutin’ ideas.” “One Law Lord once described the British Constitution as a trackless desert.”  Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Music: Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What makes someone give up a lucrative job in the City of London to risk their life fighting ISIS in Syria – with no prior military training? In one of our most astonishing interviews, Macer Gifford describes how he left the UK to spend three long tours fighting with the Kurdish YPG militia against the brutal terror group Islamic State. He tells Arthur Snell what it’s like to cross into a warzone, his book Fighting Evil: The Ordinary Man Who Went To War Against ISIS (£2 on Kindle!) and the shocking, inspiring and sometimes tragic stories of his fellow foreign fighters. “It wasn’t about fighting, it was about standing in solidarity” “Volunteers aren’t all left-wing activists. I’m a card carrying member of the Conservative Party.” “The Kurds are talking about amazing things like women’s rights and gay rights – and it’s all off the back of the most brutal conflict” Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Which flavour of police overreach do you like least: COVID regulations if you’re on the right, or the Police Bill if you’re centre-left? Special guest Emily Benn joins us to disentangle the worsening mess of civil rights under this government. And with Line Of Duty returning as British policing is in the spotlight as seldom before, do we need a conversation about “Copaganda” entertainment in the UK, as America had over George Floyd? Plus: what Joe Biden’s New Deal really means.  “The fact that this is an emergency isn’t an excuse for poor legislation and poor scrutiny.” – Emily Benn “Biden is ripping up an economic consensus that has stood for 40 years since Reagan.” – Miatta Fahnbulleh “I don’t know what Centrist is supposed to mean, apart from claiming that someone is boring and lacks ideas… and that’s obviously rubbish.” – Emily Benn Presented and produced by Dorian Lynskey with Miatta Fahnbulleh and Naomi Smith. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic  and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The EU:UK vaccine export row: who’s in the right and will a friendly phone call from Boris Johnson sort it all out like it always does? On the anniversary of Lockdown 1, will the pandemic regulations face a rocky renewal? And Christmas comes early for lucky Priti Patel as the Bristol rioters breathe life back into her illiberal Police Bill. Alex Andreou sets up the week ahead. “The danger of the Bill is that if peaceful protest is outlawed, then you might as well riot.” “Priti Patel must be absolutely delighted at what she saw in Bristol. She will put rocket boosters on the Police Bill.” Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A bonus weekend edition… Finding inspiration in the midst of pandemic can be difficult, but how hard is it to write a book about a city you can’t visit because of lockdown? And how has the Church fared during this period of enforced isolation? Author and practising Christian Francis Spufford talks to Ros Taylor about his new novel Light Perpetual, the “incredibly natural” failure of imagination in the midst of this pandemic, and how COVID has left the Church “smaller and wobblier” than ever before. “The ordinariness of the Blitz leaps out at me… people woke up having survived the night, dusted themselves down and went to work” “People will sit in cafes and ride on trains again… they’ll regard this as the weird glitch of 2020” “COVID has been catastrophic for the church… it will emerge smaller and wobblier than before the pandemic started” Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Grenfell tragedy exposed the worst of a housing crisis which affects some 8 million people and leaves one in seven people in unaffordable or unsuitable homes. How did we get into this mess and how do we get out of it? Why can’t we build enough houses in the right places? Alex Andreou talks to Catherine Ryder, Director of Policy and Research at the National Housing Federation, and Steve Cole of the country’s largest social landlord the Clarion Group, about beating a huge challenge that has defeated successive governments.  “Housing Minister is THE big churn post in government. Everyone comes in with one big thing they want to do…” – Steve Cole “I know only a handful of people in the UK who live where they did ten years ago, and only a handful of people in Greece who DON’T.” – Alex Andreou “There’s been a huge flip from government building supply to supporting demand… The housing benefit bill is £23bn.” – Steve Cole Presented by Alex Andreou. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For British intelligence, Soviet mole George Blake was possibly the most damaging traitor of the whole Cold War. Towards the end of Blake’s life the FT’s Simon Kuper met the ageing defector for “the most extraordinary interview of my life.” He tells Arthur Snell about his book The Happy Traitor, which sets out Blake’s astonishing journey from comically patriotic British citizen through his time of treachery in an unbelievably complacent British intelligence service to an escape from justice that came straight from a cartoon story. Why did Blake do it? And did he in some sense get away with it? “For a decade, every secret of British intelligence was handed over to the Soviets by Blake.” “By his own reckoning Blake betrayed several hundred British agents, many of whom were executed.”  “I was told that Blake detested Putin’s gaudy KGB capitalism… but he depended on Putin for his dacha.” Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices