The Bunker – Your daily news Deep Dive

What is England? Well, that depends on the myths and stories you listen to. Are these tales more fiction than fact? In their new book England: Seven Myths That Changed A Country – and How to Set Them Straight authors Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears seek the reality of England’s national story. They join Ros Taylor in The Bunker. 

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Buy England: Seven Myths That Changed A Country – and How to Set Them Straight 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. 

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Assistant Producer: Adam Wright. Audio editor: Robin Leeburn. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Sunak’s election campaign is going as you’d expect – he’s managed to annoy everyone and make himself look like an idiot at the same time. After the national service announcement, can we expect anything but red meat for Express readers in the coming days? And, on the other hand – what real stuff will Starmer be discussing? Plus we look at the latest in Europe ahead of the EU elections. 

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Written and presented by Jacob Jarvis with Alex Andreou. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Rishi Sunak’s hapless, rain-sodden election announcement left the country agog. Is this how he means to go on? Why did he choose now? Can he really handle six weeks of punishing campaigning? Hasn’t anyone in No.1 got an umbrella? Seasoned political journalist Steve Richards of the Rock N Roll Politics podcast forecasts stormy electoral weather with Andrew Harrison.  

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Written and presented by Podmasters Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio producer: Jade Bailey. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production 

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The upcoming Indian election will be the biggest in history, with one fifth of the world’s population voting. How consequential will it be – for the nation and the rest of the world too?  Gavin Esler speaks to Rohan Venkat, consulting editor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Centre for the Advanced Study of India and editorial consultant at India’s Centre for Policy Research. 

• “India is an unusual democratic experiment. What happens in this election is important for democracy all across the South.” – Rohan Venkat

• “This is one fifth of the population that we’re talking about. Whatever happens for India matters for all of humanity.” – Rohan Venkat

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Written and presented by Gavin Esler. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard. Audio editor: Robin Williams. Managing editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson and artwork by James Parrett. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Say “monetarism” to anyone who was around in the early 80s and watch the chill run down their spine. Margaret Thatcher tried to conquer inflation by using a fringe economic credo of slashing the money supply. The result was a collapsed economy and unemployment on a colossal scale. What was monetarism? Did it work, even in its own terms? And where are its echoes today?

Tim Lankester – then the PM’s private secretary for economic affairs, now author of Inside Thatcher’s Monetarism Experiment – takes Andrew Harrison back to an age of scorched earth economics.  

• “She set out to get inflation down, but it didn’t work out well at all. There was a massive deflation of the economy and unemployment almost doubled.” – Sir Tim Lankester

• “Manufacturing suffered enormously. Output went down by almost 20%. These were pretty bad years for the economy.” – Sir Tim Lankester

Buy Inside Thatcher’s Monetarism Experiment 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.

Written and presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Simon Williams. Produced by Eliza Davis-Beard. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Art by Jim Perrett. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. The Bunker is a Podmasters production 

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Conspiracy theorists and disinformation around issues such as the Coid-19 pandemic have created an army of non-expert experts around the world. With the advancement of AI and social media dominating people’s lives, properly researched information from trusted sources is needed now more than ever. But has society already gone too far? Tom Nichols is a writer for The Atlantic and the author of “The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters”, and joins Ros Taylor in The Bunker.

Buy The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters 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.

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Producer: Chris Jones. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Will the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash destabilise Iran, worsen its conflict with Israel, reignite the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests – or all three? Plus the infected blood scandal turns out even worse than anyone thought. Cabinet Secretary Simon Case faces the COVID inquiry. And are the Tories deliberately driving British universities into crisis? The week ahead with Alex Andreou and Andrew Harrison.  

We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. 

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Presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Jade Bailey. Art by James Parrett. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production 

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The most searing drama of the 1980s, Alan Bleasdale’s Boys From The Blackstuff turned Thatcher’s unemployment crisis into unmissable TV. Unemployed builder “Yosser” Hughes’s desperate plea “gizza job” became a catchphrase. Now the story comes to London in an acclaimed stage adaptation by James ‘Dear England’ Graham. Barry Sloane, cast as Yosser, talks to Andrew Harrison about why the Blackstuff still matters, the legacy of original Yosser actor Bernard Hill… and the power of dark humour.

We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit.

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Presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio production by Simon Williams. Art by James Parrett. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Managing Editor Jacob Jarvis. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production www.podmasters.co.uk

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Vladimir Putin has surrounded himself with loyalists who have kept him in power for 20 years. Earlier this week, Russian defence minister and close ally of Putin, Sergei Shoigu, was removed from his post. But the author of The New Politics of Russia, Andrew Monaghan, says Shoigu’s removal was less of a sacking, as Western media suggests, and more of a promotion. He joins Chris Jones to discuss how Putin’s inner circle operates. 

Buy The New Politics of Russia 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, 

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Written and presented by Chris Jones. Producer: Eliza Davis Beard and Chris Jones. Audio production: Jade Bailey. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Music by Kenny Dickinson. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.

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Britain has a spy problem, with a significant surge in threats from China, Russia and Iran in recent months. What kind of covert operations are they running? Gavin Esler sits down with former MI6 director of operations and intelligence and director of transnational threats and political risk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Nigel Inkster, to find out just how concerned we should be.  

• “We’re seeing a significant upsurge in espionage and other forms of covert activity directed at western countries.” – Nigel Inkster 

• “At the end of the day, there is always going to be a role for the human source, for secret agents, because you need to know what is going on in the minds of key decision makers… you can’t interrogate a tape recorder or a satellite.” – Nigel Inkster 

We are sponsored by Indeed. Go to Indeed.com/bunker for £100 sponsored credit. 

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Written and presented by Gavin Esler. 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.

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