The Bunker – Your daily news Deep Dive

Why are so many minority patients rejecting the COVID vaccines and what can healthcare do about it? Vaccine hesitancy in minority communities is threatening to turn the pandemic into a specific crisis for marginalised and non-white populations. Ayesha Hazarika talks to Dr Salman Waqar, GP and General Secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association, about a problem with deep roots in the historic marginalisation of BAME people. 

• “When we tell BAME communities that this vaccine will save your life, many of them won’t take what you say at face value”
• “I’ve seen elderly vaccination patients crying because it was the first time they’d been out since March 2020”
• “A lot of the NHS’s non-white workforce has struggled to get its voice heard… We’re still not seeing that workforce represented in NHS management”
• “The biggest killer in COVID is economic deprivation – and minority communities happen to be more poor”

Presented by Ayesha Hazarika. 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

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Just how global can Britain be if we’re becoming ever-more insular after Brexit? Naomi Smith talks to Peter Westmacott, former ambassador to Turkey, France and the USA, about the hidden prejudices that influence international relations, whether the advent of Biden will turn back the tide of populist nationalism, and his new book They Call It Diplomacy. 

• “A French colleague once asked me point-blank, Why do you English hate us so much? I don’t believe we do – but there is definitely a Little Englander mindset.” 
• “There was an old Iranian joke that if you hold up Khomeini’s beard you’d see MADE IN ENGLAND underneath.” 
• “Leaving the EU was never a legitimate way of dealing with immigration from places outside the EU.”
• “I remember saying Be very careful when you call a referendum because you might get an answer that’s nothing to do with the question on the ballot papers.”

Presented by Naomi Smith. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Music: Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Robin Leeburn. The Bunker is a Podmasters production

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Would you get get a vaccine passport if it meant you could go out to eat, drink and dance? Even if it created a two-tier Britain? Special guest Alan Rusbridger joins us to talk about his new book News And How To Use It, the crisis in journalism and how we fix it. And Frasier is coming back. Is this a good idea? Hardcore fangirl Yasmeen has thoughts. 

• “Journalism is as essential as ambulances or the police…” – Alan Rusbridger
• “Vaccine passports? This is the Government wasting time thinking of solutions to problems that don’t exist” – Ian Dunt
• “You don’t want Mark Zuckerberg regulating your speech. But you don’t want Government regulating your speech either.” – Alan Rusbridger

Presented by Andrew Harrison with Yasmeen Serhan and Ian Dunt. 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

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Will Wednesday’s Budget see the end of Sunshine Sunak or will the Chancellor put off the reckoning with financial Armageddon again? How will you spend the last week of home schooling? And what about that new Brazilian variant? Arthur Snell sets out the coming week for Andrew Harrison.

• “Margaret Thatcher is the divinity all the old Tories worship, but this party’s agenda couldn’t be further from hers.”

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

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Bully, liar, tyrant, fantasist, thief on a monumental scale – just ask the Mirror pensioners – and narcissist of an even greater magnitude, Robert Maxwell was a villain for whom the term “disgraced newspaper tycoon” seems pitifully small. Yet as former Evening Standard and Telegraph journalist John Preston’s new book Fall: The Mystery Of Robert Maxwell shows, the horror of Maxwell’s early life explains (if not excuses) the monster he became. How did Maxwell fool, and then fleece, the publishing world? 

• “If you worked in Fleet Street in the 80s there was no escaping Maxwell…”
• “You have to seen Maxwell through the prism of what happened to his family in the Holocaust. There was enormous rage and guilt there.”
• “Robert Maxwell was gripped by a simultaneous desire to sit at the top table, and also to kill everyone else at that top table.”
• “Maxwell was both ridiculed and feared, often by the same people.”

Presented and 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

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After an initial COVID response that was lauded as an example to the world, Germany has experienced an unexpectedly harsh second wave. What will that mean for the twilight of the Merkel Era? Is Germany’s strange opposition coalition of libertarians, alt.rightists and anti-vaxxers just fringe politics or something more serious? And what comes after Merkel? The Economist’s Berlin bureau chief Tom Nuttall explains all to Justin Quirk. 

• “When the COVID numbers are totted up, Germany will still turn out to be one of the places in Europe where you wanted to be”
• “When the pandemic hit, support for Merkel’s Christian Democrats shot up.”
• “The Green Party in Germany really wants power. It craves it. And it’s positioned itself very much as a centrist party.”
• “The big question is, how big is the Merkel Bonus for the CDU?”

Presented by Justin Quirk. 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

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Was the Trump Presidency just a publicity stunt that got out of hand? Film-maker James Fletcher’s new documentary on the 2016 campaign The Accidental President is streaming now on Amazon and Apple TV. He talks to Dorian Lynskey about what fed the Black Swan event of the Trump presidency, how Trump’s freestyle campaign left his Republican rivals with nothing to say, and how it could be that – even after four years of chaos and corruption – Trump increased his popular vote in 2020. 

• “This was an insane conflagration of events”
• “The Republicans slept-walked into the 2016 election and a complacent Hillary Clinton thought it was in the bag.”
• “This was a freestyle, open-mic campaign… Any professional campaign advisor would have told Trump to do exactly the opposite of what he did.” 
• “Hillary Clinton just could never convincingly explain why she wanted to be President.”
• “Democrats just laughed at Trump without understanding what a serious danger he posed.”
• “Has Trump really changed the system forever? Are we really that shallow and ridiculous?”

Presented by Dorian Lynskey. 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

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Our 250th edition! In the Thatcher governments of the 80s Michael Heseltine was the loudest voice for embattled One Nation Toryism. In later years he’s become a hero to Remainers, eventually paying for his Europhilia with expulsion from the party. Ian Dunt talks to him about the future of Toryism, what it was like to work with Margaret Thatcher, what he makes of Keir Starmer… and whether circumstances will force Boris Johnson back to the One Nation Toryism we thought he’d driven out of the party.  

• “The most sensible thing for Britain is to reapply to join the EU. It won’t happen soon – but it should.”
• “Yes, Margaret Thatcher would have pandered to popular opinion. She was a politician. But she would never do anything as reckless as leaving the Single Market.” 
• “The words of the Levelling Up agenda are fine. What’s completely missing is the deeds.” 

Presented by Ian Dunt. 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

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As the Roadmap to Unlocking is unveiled, are Johnson’s plans over-cautious, reckless, unrealistic or maybe… reasonable? Special guest former Home Secretary David Blunkett joins us to explain what it’s like to make decisions in a crisis, what he thinks of Keir Starmer’s performance so far, and whether he rates Priti Patel. Plus, do we need a deradicalisation programme for angry white males?

• “If opposition leaders are constantly calling for people to resign and then they don’t, it tends to make them look a bit weak.” – Ayesha Hazarika
• “If Governments want to show how tough they are, they should choose opponents their own size – and maybe not misguided young women.” – David Blunkett on the Shamima Begum case
• “One type of extremism breeds another. You can’t counter one extreme group by creating another.” – Ayesha Hazarika
• “On 9/11 there wasn’t a single person in Cabinet that panicked. I was amazed.” – David Blunkett
• “Starmer’s got a nightmare job because Labour can’t get a hearing… and because the Government are being forced to enact a social democratic programme.” – David Blunkett

Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Ayesha Hazarika and 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

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Will Boris Johnson’s “schools first” plan for unlocking England placate the headbangers of the CRG? What about those desperate for a beer that’s not from a can? Can Keir Starmer out-caution the PM? And what’s going on with Johnson’s latest wheeze, a subterranean roundabout under the Isle of Man? Ros Taylor sets up the week ahead. 

• “This is bad news if you’re a pub landlord – and good news if you’re an off-license flogging cheap tinnies.” 
• “Starmer’s moment is not now. He’ll never prosper in the middle of a successful vaccine rollout.”

Presented and 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

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