The Bunker – Your daily news Deep Dive

Are the rules that make powerful people powerful changing? Can they still bank on the old myth of the superhuman CEO or political leader? Business journalist from the Telegraph, Evening Standard and beyond James Ashton has just published The Nine Types Of Leader: How The Leaders Of Tomorrow Can Learn From The Leaders Of Today. He talks to Alex Andreou about how leadership is changing.  

• “The pendulum has swung from alpha dominated populists to diplomats – from Trump to Biden.”
• “I hate these words like passion and authenticity – but a leader has to be believable.”
• “There are still plenty of arrogant thin-skinned leaders around, who need to be surrounded by people who just say the right thing”

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

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If democracy is so great why does it keep producing such terrible results? Nick Cohen of The Observer talks to Georgetown University political philosopher Jason Brennan, author of Against Democracy, about what it means when sweeping democratic mandates arise from underinformed voters. Do people really vote on the basis of policy or simply to be part of the gang? Should you have to pass a test before you can vote? Would Jason criticise our system in front of a Belorussian protestor? And what can Iron Maiden teach us about what’s wrong with democracy?

• “A key problem is, the average voter basically knows nothing about politics…”
• “For most people, the act of voting is a little like kicking your dog because you’ve had a bad day at work.”
• “The average citizen in a democracy is much more authoritarian than the societies they live in. What’s checking them is the elites.” 
• “Why is it so good to live in liberal democracies? Is it because they’re democracies – or because they’re liberal?”
• “Voters aren’t stupid. It’s more a question of, Is it even worth my while for me to know this stuff?” 

Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofrenijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Technology will displace 47% of all jobs, said Dr Carl Benedikt Frey in a study he co-wrote called The Future Of Employment – a paper so influential that it’s at the centre of jobs policy for governments across the world. But what will replace those jobs? Will anything replace them?

In his new book The Technology Trap Dr Frey describes how the same job destruction and extremes of poverty and great wealth that took place in the Industrial Revolution are happening all over again thanks to artificial intelligence and Big Data. So how will we work in the future? Should we celebrate the end of boring, repetitive jobs? And how can we plan for jobs of tomorrow when we can’t even conceptualise them?

• “The scale of jobs that are replaceable by technology – but that’s only a part of the question”
• “Machines perform poorly in creative or social tasks. That’s where most new jobs will be created.”

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

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Britain’s vaccination programme is undoubtedly working. Do we have to grit out teeth and admit our political opponents have done at least one thing right? Healthcare commentator Roy Lilley tells us the mood among NHS workers. Plus: small business goes under the political bus, the murky world of doses for data, will we ever travel for fun again – and what the hell is happening in Italy? Ros Taylor and Ayesha Hazarika join Andrew Harrison for the weekly Bunker panel show. 

• “The NHS is on the ragged edge. It’s hanging on by its fingernails” – Roy Lilley
• “The vaccine rollout will be a powerful argument in favour of paying more tax for the NHS” - Ros Taylor
• “Labour was always associated with red tape. Now the Conservatives are strangling business with it” - Ayesha Hazarika

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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Vaccination steps up, Trump’s legal shenanigans, Paul Dacre to OFCOM, Myanmar, Navalny and the fallout from the EU’s terrible decision on vaccine exports. Yasmeen Serhan of The Atlantic tells Andrew Harrison what to watch out for in the coming week.

• “Myanmar will reveal whether the US is going to be the country that stands up for democracy again.” 
• “The emerging COVID variants are a warning that we aren’t safe until we’re all safe.”  
• “Trump authorised the Capitol insurrection. There was merch, for God’s sake.” 

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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What can the Spanish Flu of 1918 tell us about coping with Coronavirus – and maybe the next pandemic too? Nick Cohen of The Observer talks to Laura Spinney, author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu Of 1918 And How It Changed The World, about the lessons from possibly the greatest public health disaster in history.

Did populations weakened by the First World War provide a fertile breeding ground for the Spanish Flu? Is democracy really at a disadvantage when dealing with pandemics? Will post-COVID generations have to face up to the inherent viral dangers of eating meat? And the myth of a new Roaring Twenties: will we go from a new Spanish Flu to a new Wall Street Crash without a an intervening Jazz Age? 

• “What matters is the level of trust in a society. If it’s not there when the outbreak happens it’s very hard to create it.” 
• “Populations tend to bounce back rapidly from pandemics for the simple reason that pandemics tend not to destroy your capital cities.” 
• “This is the first digitally-witnessed pandemic. Every detail has been tracked and traced.”
• “Every strain of flu that has ever circulated began as a pandemic. But the Spanish Flu was at least 25 times as virulent than most strains.”

Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofrenijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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How does a band make widescreen, forward-thinking communal rock music when they’re suddenly locked down miles away from one another? And when your keyboard player has moved to Australia? Paul Smith of Newcastle postpunk adventurers Maxïmo Park tells Dorian Lynskey about finding inspiration in strange places, recording an album on WhatsApp and jerky FaceTime calls, writing about Brexit and Grenfell… and the myth of levelling up the North. 

• “Whatever we might do to try and conceal it, our true nature always comes up through the cracks.”
• “My faith in Boris Johnson to roll out the vaccine and save the live industry is low – and it wasn’t high to begin with.”
• “I don’t want to be the North East guy with a chip on his shoulder… but it’s going to take a lot of levelling up to level up Stockton.” 
• “The live music industry is worth a lot to the Chancellor, whether he knows it or not”

Presented by Dorian Lynskey. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters production

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How does it feel to work in the thick of the pandemic and spend time with patients you know will die? Rachel Clarke is a doctor in Oxfordshire who works in palliative care and her new book is Breathtaking: Inside The NHS In A Time Of Pandemic. She talks to Ros Taylor about the incredible personal stress of frontline medicine in the pandemic, the price Britain has paid for Boris Johnson’s “unforgivable” refusal to take the hard decisions, the death threats she’s had for telling the truth about COVID, and why we’re still so determined to look away from Britain’s appalling death toll from Coronavirus.

• “I feel murderous with rage and blind with fury when I hear the Prime Minister trot out his glib claims of success.”
• “I never in a million years thought we’d ever let things get as bad as 2020 again. Yet now we’re in worse conditions than that first peak.”
• “Boris Johnson knows he promised to protect the NHS and he has manifestly failed.”
• “The cruelest aspect of this pandemic is that all the ways we show our love are the ways that COVID spreads.”
• ““The unforgivable thing is not learning from your mistakes, and in Britain we’ve had a litany of mistakes”
• “If our Prime Minister wasn’t being given the science, or worse decided to juggle it for his own political imperatives, then that’s inexcusable”

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

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The Government’s shoddy EU Deal means the live music business will have to cope with mountains of red tape it thought was in the past. Singer FISH, ex- of prog rock legends Marillion and now a successful solo touring artist, set out the details of this nightmare in a blistering social media post at the weekend. Now he talks to Andrew Harrison about how the strangling complexity of permits and visas will choke off emerging British talent even when COVID lifts, and why the Government isn’t even pretending to help small businesses I one of Britain’s true global industries.

Find out more about Fish and buy aptly-titled new album Weltschmertz at fishmusic.scot

• “This will kill new bands wanting to establish themselves in Europe.”
• “We could be playing seven cities in ten days before we know someone is infected.”
• “Most Europeans learned English through rock and pop songs.”
• “Our albums are three times more expensive now – they cost 31 euros on the continent”
• “I was supposed to retire in 2022. That’s out the window.”

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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Is the UK’s vaccination effort finally an actual British success story… for the NHS, not the Government? Exactly how are the vaccines different and how do they work? Special guest Sathnam Sanghera joins us to talk about his new book Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain, how the British Empire still haunts our present, and the unsurpassable joys of blanking Julia Hartley-Brewer. Plus should we all stop saying woke?

Miatta Fahnbulleh and Arthur Snell join Dorian Lynskey for the weekly Bunker panel show.

• “In the middle of a pandemic, Robert Jenrick takes time to talk about defending statues? That’s Imperial thinking.” – Sathnam Sanghera
• “There are loads of reasons to be totally disappointed with this government… but we shouldn’t fall into the trap of saying everything they do is a failure.” – Arthur Snell
• “We’ve never confronted the British Empire simply because it’s so painful. Massacres, wars… and a few railways. It’s not fun.” – Sathnam Sanghera
• “Churchill said the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre was a crime. Was HE woke?” – Sathnam Sanghera

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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