The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Political drama can be tedious but we can all enjoy watching a bitter rivalry unfold. What have been the greatest personal beefs in British politics? Before Starmer and Sunak there was Thatcher and Heath, Blair and Brown, Cameron and Johnson. Seth Thévoz talks Andrew Harrison through some of the ultimate Westminster head-to-heads.  • “When the personal overrides the principle, that’s when it becomes a problem. It’s a weak spot if you’re trying to bring down a person and not forward a cause.”  • “There are tales of Brown yelling at Blair, ‘You ruined my life!’”  We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit .Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast  Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All eyes remain on the Middle East after Iran’s drone attacks on Israel. How will Netanyahu respond? And how are Britain and the US going to react? In the UK, Parliament returns – what is on the agenda? Plus, we look at other flashpoints across the globe – and round-up the rest of the domestic news. Alex Andreou and Hannah Fearn talk through the week ahead.   • “Perhaps it is a poor choice of timing for Iran, but it feels like a febrile time for the entire region.” – Hannah Fearn • “It feels like both sides are looking for a forever war.” – Alex Andreou • “The attack crystallised the partnership between Israel, the US and the UK.” – Hannah Fearn We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit Support us on Patreon:www.patreon.com/bunkercast   Written and presented by Alex Andreou. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Producer: Liam Tait. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Donald Trump needs evangelical Christian voters to back him to stand a chance in November. But can his religious rhetoric and doubling down on his supposed love of all things Jesus really help him win? Philip Bump is a national columnist for The Washington Post and says that “Trump’s appeal to Christians is more limited than he suggests”. He joins Jacob Jarvis in The Bunker to discuss whether Trump’s Christian pandering will help him. • “There’s definitely a subset that believes that the hand of God came down and anointed Donald Trump.” – Philip Bump• “I don’t know if there’s anyone Trump could pick as his running mate to lose his support from evangelical Christians.” – Philip BumpWe are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored creditwww.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis. Producer: Chris Jones. Audio production: Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Every party promises a growing economy as a solution for everything – but can economic expansion carry on forever? On a planet with finite resources, can growth really be infinite? Ros Taylor talks to Daniel Susskind, economic professor and author of Growth: A History and a Reckoning, about the mystery of economic growth, what “degrowthers” want, and how to balance the pros and cons of an ever-expanding economy. • “Economic growth feels like it’s a permanent fixture, and yet for most of history there was no growth at all. Modern economic growth only really began about 200-250 years ago.” – Daniel Susskind • “One of the great mysteries in economics is that we actually know surprisingly little about the process of economic growth.” – Daniel Susskind • “One thing degrowthers get wrong is this idea that we cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. I think we CAN have effectively infinite growth.” – Daniel Susskind Buy Growth: A History and a Reckoning through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.www.patreon.com/bunkercast     Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Robin Leeburn. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Adolf Hitler still comes up in conversations startlingly regularly – particularly online. Why? Sir Richard J. Evans, regius professor emeritus of history at the University of Cambridge and the author of The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination, as well as countless other titles, tells Jacob Jarvis why we’re still so obsessed with one of the most evil people to ever live.  • “Our perspectives change - you can now look at Hitler through the eyes and experience of Donald Trump, whose relationship to the truth and hostility to democracy make us look at Hitler afresh.” - Richard J. Evans• “Seeing the worst that humanity can do, we can use that as a signpost to the more trivial decisions between good and bad.” - Richard J. EvansBuy The Hitler Conspiracies: The Third Reich and the Paranoid Imagination [https://uk.bookshop.org/a/13277/9780141991498] through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund The Bunker by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.www.patreon.com/bunkercast   Written and presented by Podmasters managing editor Jacob Jarvis. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Robin Leeburn. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Could you watch GB News for a whole month? Gavin Esler did, in the name of research. What he experienced was a nightmare mix of confected anger, wild conspiracy and resentment designed to make its viewers feel like victims. GB News might be a joke but its growing social media presence is spreading and detoxifying the hard right views of some very powerful people. Gavin tells Andrew Harrison why we need to start taking Britain’s most absurd TV channel much more seriously.• “I am a recovering GB News watcher. I have to say, it was an ordeal - it was awful.” - Gavin Esler• “Some of the appeal is that ‘we give voice to people who aren’t heard’… But it is an attempt to normalise things that are fundamentally linked to the far right.” - Gavin Esler• “GB News plays into our social divisions, it plays into culture wars, it plays into people who wish to create problems and not solve them. - Gavin EslerRead Gavin’s highly entertaining story GB Spews – What I learned watching Britain’s most ghastly television news channel in Prospect magazine. www.patreon.com/bunkercast   We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.Written and presented by Podmasters Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Simon Williams. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the Israel/Gaza war reaches stalemate, are hopes of a ceasefire just wishful thinking? Are “peace talks” in Ukraine just a euphemism for giving Putin what he wants? Plus Thames Water circles the plughole, the William Wragg WhatsApp fallout, and a total eclipse of everyone’s sanity. Ros Taylor sets out the week ahead with Andrew Harrison.  • “I think we’re seeing a slow creep towards giving up some Ukrainian territory to Russia” • “The more Putin can pick-off Ukrainian support, particularly in Eastern Europe, the less likely Ukraine will be able to fight” • “The William Wragg honeytrap scandal could just be someone being mischievous, but it could well be something much more serious” Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Assistant producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Music: Kenny Dickinson. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even if you aren’t on Tiktok, you’ll know one of its billion plus monthly users. But how many of them know how their data is being collected, by whom, and why? The US is now proposing to ban the Chinese-owned social media platform over its links to the Chinese Communist Party. Chris Jones asks leading tech journalist Will Guyatt whether this is all just a form of political warfare against China – or if we really should worry about TikTok.   • “The idea that TikTok is in whole owned by the Chinese Communist Party isn’t true. It’s a complex system of ownership spread across the world, including the U.S. and the Cayman Islands.”  • “There are rabid inconsistencies. Joe Biden is saying he’ll support the act to ban TikTok, and using it as a part of his campaign.”  • “Is this about fears over information gathering or is this purely geopolitical? Or a bigger feeling that we shouldn’t do anything to benefit China?”   Support us on Patreon:www.patreon.com/bunkercast     Written and presented by Chris Jones. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Jade Bailey. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Instagram | Twitter   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Britain’s Miners’ Strike conjures up strong emotions to this day – despite 40 years having passed since the confrontation. But what are the common misconceptions of this period of history? And how are its effects still being felt today? Andrew Harrison asks Robert Gildea, emeritus professor of modern history at the University of Oxford, about the enduring legacy of the Miners’ Strike.     • “The slogan was ‘close a pit, kill a community’ – and there was indeed devastation across mining communities in the decade after the strikes.” – Robert Gildea  • "There was a kind of ‘alternative welfare state’ that was set up largely by the miners’ wives who sustained striking miners and their families. Women came into their own.” – Robert Gildea    Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/bunkercast    Listen to the latest episode of Jam Tomorrow on the coal industry:  https://listen.podmasters.uk/JT2404coal  Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Jade Bailey. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Britain’s police forces seem constantly embroiled in scandal. Where does this stem from and where is most of the corruption? Former police officer and undercover drugs operative Neil Woods, author of Good Cop, Bad War, talks to Alex Andreou about the extent of police corruption in Britain and the pressing need for drug reform to reduce the problem.  • “If the public understood the extent of corruption caused by drug policy, we would have a referendum... Drug laws in this country are not ethically sound.” – Neil Woods • “Because criminals control the over £10 billion a year drug market, which is completely unregulated, the vastness of that wealth is what gives organised crime its power to corrupt.” – Neil Woods  www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Alex Andreou. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Simon Williams. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices