The Bunker – Your daily news Deep Dive

Where were you when the Don went down? And what does Trump’s end mean for Britain? Plus, as COVID, No Deal and general incompetence drive Scotland further away from Westminster, could independence really happen? SNP MP Alyn Smith and pro-union (OR IS SHE?) Scot Ayesha Hazarika thrash it out. And who would our panel most like to spend lockdown with?

• “The left is good at laughing at the right – but not at winning power from them.” – Ayesha Hazarika
• “This groundswell for Scottish independence is not about Boris Johnson.” – Alyn Smith MP
• “The European Parliament is set up to be productive.  Westminster is showbiz for ugly people” -– Alyn Smith MP 

Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison with Ros Taylor and Ayesha Hazarika. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters production

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Will Trump concede and what happens if he won’t? Can Boris “Britain Trump” make amends to a new President who remembers his “slavish devotion” to his predecessor? Plus: Dido Harding up before the beak in Parliamentary Committee and the small matter of a new civil war in Ethiopia. Arthur Snell sets up the week ahead.

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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A weekend bonus edition: Since 1935 the American Legion has organised summer camps for high school students to learn about US Government, by forming their own political parties and state legislatures. Filmmakers Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine documented the programme in Austin, Texas, and the resulting film Boys State won a prize at the Sundance Film Festival. They told Dorian Lynskey what they learned about America’s next generation of leaders. Is this really a “conservative indoctrination camp”? 

• “The American Legion feels like it has one foot in the 1950s and one foot in the 21st century” – Jesse Moss
• “We had an incredible window into boyhood and masculinity” – Amanda McBaine
• “Some people see politics as a game, win at all costs” – Jesse Moss
• “This polarisation we have is not going anywhere” – Amanda McBaine

Presented by Dorian Lynskey. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers are Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Theme tune by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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As Biden slowly erodes Donald Trump’s leads in the final swing states, we convene our favourite expert regulars for an all-star postmortem of Election 2020. Former Obama staffer Amy Pope, UCL politics professor Brian Klaas and Steve Schmidt of never-Trump Republican political action committee The Lincoln Project look at what Trump has done to American democracy – and how Biden could fix it.

• “Democracy doesn’t function in societies where there is no ability to distinguish between the truth and lies” – Steve Schmidt
• “There were two elections – one moral, and one political emergency, to remove Trump. We only had the latter” – Brian Klaas
• “Trump has already lost. We just have to wait this out.” – Steve Schmidt

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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Was Guy Fawkes really “the last honest man to enter Parliament”, as we keep hearing on Twitter? Or a fore-runner of today’s religiously radicalised terrorists? Why is a villain of the Gunpowder Plot acclaimed as a hero by some in 2020? Nick Holland, author of The Real Guy Fawkes, tells Jude Rogers why Guy Fawkes persists as a symbol… and what we misunderstand about a man who almost murdered thousands in a 17th century atrocity.

• “Guy Fawkes is a complicated figure – so both political sides can claim him”
• “It’s estimated he’d gathered enough gunpowder to destroy Parliament 25 times over”

Presented by Jude Rogers. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producer Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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Been to bed yet? Thinking about going straight back? Yasmeen Serhan gives Andrew Harrison her morning-after interim report on the dismal deadlock in the Presidential Election. How has Trump done so well? Can Biden still scrape it? Did the polls get it wrong? And has America just given brutal populism a vote of confidence?

• “This election was a test for whether populist politics will stay or not… the fact it’s so close shows that it will.”
• “My fear is that millions of Americans will come away from this believing that our system is corrupted.”
• “There are other Trumps waiting in the wings”

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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National lockdown, Labour Party breakdown… Trump takedown? As the US election reaches its nightmare final confrontation, small-c conservative and Never Trumper James Kirchick joins us to argue that American democracy won’t end if Trump wins. Plus, what does Jeremy Corbyn’s rejection of the EHRC report mean for fighting antisemitism and fixing the Labour Party? And where were we all – and what did we feel – back in November 2016 when all this started? 

• “The only way in which Pete Buttigieg’s sexuality really mattered was people on the Left complaining that he wasn’t gay ENOUGH…” – James Kirchick
• “I’m torn.Trump is an ogre and a monster but a landslide would endorse many things that the Democrats that I can’t agree with. I don’t want a Great Awokening in America.” – James Kirchick
•  “Trump has revealed the power of celebrity” – James Kirchick

Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Miatta Fahnbulleh and Nina Schick. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters production

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The most expensive Presidential election in history ends tomorrow. BRIAN KLAAS, Associate Professor in Global Politics at UCL, host of the Power Corrupts podcast, and author of How to Rig an Election tells Andrew Harrison about the states to watch, the Red Mirage vs the Blue Shift, voter suppression, the debasement of the Republican Party… and what it means if Trump wins.

• “There is no other democratic country in the world where a major party relies solely on driving down the vote.”
• “What Trump is talking about is illegitimate beyond belief.”
• “If Trump wins, his team has executive orders prepared that could not be countenanced if he had to face election again.”

Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Logo and branding by Mark Taylor. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters production

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Lockdown II: If the Government can’t come up with a COVID exit strategy, could a coalition of MPs, experts and campaigners provide one? And can Britain cope even if we never get a vaccine? March for Change director Tom Brufatto tells Naomi Smith about the the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus’s plan for an independent COVID plan, and why we can’t squander the next full lockdown… which is coming whether we like it or not.  

This podcast recorded before Saturday’s announcement of the November Lockdown. 

• “We are trapped in a cycle of locking down and opening up. It’s means we can’t function as an economy.” 
• “Either you see it as leaving lives versus the economy – or you accept that you can’t save the economy without saving lives first.” 
• “We may not have a vaccine next year, or ever. This is about setting Britain up to cope with it.” 

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

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When you go online the mildest disagreements can spin out of control into real anger, but why is our internet behaviour so bad? And how is this affecting democracy and public discourse? David Babbs, project lead at the campaign group ‘Clean Up The Internet’ and formerly of 38 Degrees, talks to Arthur Snell about why the online environment has become so hostile, the issues posed by anonymity, and how we can clean up our internet behaviour.

• “Anonymity is subject to a lot of misuse”
• “Abuse from anonymous accounts has the potential to be even more frightening, you don’t know where that person is lurking”
• “MPs are victims in this, they’re on the receiving end of a lot of online abuse”

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

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