The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Good news, everyone! Institutional racism is over, at least according to the Government-sponsored Sewell Report into racial disparity in the UK. As the report falls to pieces in plain sight, special guest Matthew Ryder QC (former London Deputy Mayor for social integration) joins Ayesha Hazarika, Ahir Shah and Ros Taylor to discuss a textbook example of selecting your conclusion before looking for evidence. Plus: Populism’s endgame in Brazil, the joy of blue plaques, and is Britain less divided than we thought? “The Sewell Report is a huge backwards step.” – Matthew Ryder “This should be a wake up call for Labour. The party just doesn’t trust people of colour with the big jobs.” – Matthew Ryder  Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison with Ayesha Hazarika, Ahir Shah and Ros Taylor. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Russia is massing troops on the Ukrainian border. Does Putin just want to hand Biden his first test, or is there more to it? Plus: the tangled mess that is vaccine passports. Why your foreign holiday is probably off this year. Keir Starmer under a cloud on his first anniversary as Labour leader. And what’s going on in Jordan? Arthur Snell sets out the week ahead. “It’s a bad look for an opposition leader if you can’t win a by-election in the North of England.” 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is it like being one of the few black people at Eton and Oxford? And what do they actual teach our future rulers? Musa Okwonga is the author One of Them: An Eton College Memoir, and host of the Stadio football podcast. He talks to Alex Andreou about imperial pride in private schools, why Brexit led him to move to “the heart of Europe”, and whether Spurs will make it to the Champions League… “MPs would learn more about the world by getting off the train one stop earlier, not going on a gap year.” “Schtick only works when people buy into it.”  “It’s easier to name Henry VIII’s six wives than the six biggest colonial massacres.” “A lot of the people at Eton didn’t know black people. I felt like I was representing all black people.” “Eton is the kind of school where you can be a kind of Gatsby.” Presented by Alex Andreou. 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When writer Erica Buist had the traumatic experience of finding her partner’s father dead in his home, it led her to ask why we respond to death with fear and sadness – and ultimately to travel from Mexico to Nepal and beyond to research the surprisingly uplifting book This Party's Dead: Grief, Joy And Spilled Rum At The World's Death Festivals.She talks to Arthur Snell about greeting the dead and dancing with corpses, feasts where dead bodies are “invited to the party”, the true meaning of Voldemort… and why Westerners need to get over the idea that talking about death is “rude”.  “We leave this incredibly important thing to your highest moment of trauma. Why would you do that?” “I got hit on the head with a corpse at one of these festivals. They were dancing with it…” “We’re happy to look at the blue corpse of a girl in a movie, but somehow not in real life.” “In the West, when you die you lose your powers. But in a lot of these cultures, death is where you GAIN your power.” “Hanging out with a dead body sounds bizarre. But after a couple of minutes, it’s so normal.” “The idea that teaching kids about death will traumatise them? No. Kids LOVE death. It’s their favourite.” Presented by Arthur Snell. Produced Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What will the Sturgeon/Salmond stand-off mean for the SNP’s make-or-break bid for re-election and a second independence referendum? And can an independent Scotland pay its way? SNP Cabinet Secretary for Finance Kate Forbes is our special guest. Plus: What’s behind Johnson’s defence plans for fewer soldiers and more nukes? And Alan Turing is on the £50 note but will the Queen be on our banknotes for much longer? “If Scotland goes independent, England would lose an unruly neighbour, and gain a close ally.” – Kate Forbes “By repeatedly saying ‘No’, it’s almost as if Boris Johnson has given up on making the case for the Union.” – Kate Forbes Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison with Yasmeen Serhan and Arthur Snell. Assistant producers: Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. The Bunker is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Outdoor “mingling” is back but as the Government bets all on the vaccine, are they ignoring the danger of new COVID variants? And if/when it all goes wrong, will it somehow be Europe’s fault again? Plus the possible Labour reshuffle, the SNP vs the Alba Party and what Johnson’s affair with Jennifer Arcuri really means. Ian Dunt explains the week ahead. “The only Government strategy is the vaccine, and praying that no variants blow it to smithereens” “The only way the Government can countenance giving vaccines to Ireland is under a narrative of sticking it to Europe” “If anything good can come from Boris Johnson being PM, it will be a modernisation of life in Number 10”.” 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Brexit opening a Pandora’s Box of irrational nationalism in England, and Scotland and Northern Ireland heading to the exit door, the break-up of the United Kingdom is no longer a weird fantasy but a real possibility. Nick Cohen talks to the writer, broadcaster and card-carrying Scot Gavin Esler about his new book How Britain Ends, and the forces that could pull Britain apart. Can the Union be saved? Would an independent Scotland really be welcomed into the EU? And is Britain in danger of becoming a failed state?  “I’ve had people telling me ‘We English aren’t nationalistic – that’s why we’re BETTER than other people’…” – Gavin Esler “The central role of British foreign policy since the Spanish Armada was to stop Europe uniting against us. And Brexit has achieved exactly that.” – Nick Cohen “What would post-imperial Britain’s role be? It wouldn’t BE post-Imperial Britain. It would be England alone.” – Gavin Esler “Brexit has led to the collapse of an English myth that we’re a tolerant, pragmatic people not given to wild ideas.” – Nick Cohen “Thatcher said Northern Ireland was as British as Finchley. Under Boris Johnson, in customs terms it’s as British as France.” – Gavin Esler  Presented by Nick Cohen. 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are we ready to live alongside artificial minds? And why do we still harbour a Terminator-style fear of vengeful machines? Oxford University Professor of Computer Science Michael Wooldridge, author of The Road to Conscious Machines, says we are on the brink of a great transformation in artificial intelligence. He talks to Alex Andreou about deepmind superhuman gamer bots, debunking our fear of Frankenstein’s creation, and why automation means more than robot butlers.  “We are with AI where nuclear physicists were in the early 1900s… There is so much unexplored territory.” “We’re nothing special in the universe. We’re just a bunch of atoms bumping up against each other.”   “I don’t lose sleep over the Skynet scenario. We don’t need AI to make mistakes with nuclear weapons.”  “The Frankenstein story embodies our deep-rooted fear of creating something, and then losing control of it.”  Presented by Alex Andreou. 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Constitutions are the rulebooks of government, but how does each country get its own peculiar arrangements? Linda Colley, author of The Gun, The Ship, And The Pen: War, Constitutions And The Making Of The Modern World, tells Ros Taylor about the extraordinary circumstances – from Napoleon to Catherine the Great to America’s Founding Fathers – that produced the operating systems for states. Why was America’s sacred Constitution less of a high-minded document and more of “a grimly necessary plan by a group of men who felt themselves under siege”? And does a British Constitution even really exist?  “The US Constitution was driven by short-term necessity rather than highfalutin’ ideas.” “One Law Lord once described the British Constitution as a trackless desert.”  Presented by Ros Taylor. 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What makes someone give up a lucrative job in the City of London to risk their life fighting ISIS in Syria – with no prior military training? In one of our most astonishing interviews, Macer Gifford describes how he left the UK to spend three long tours fighting with the Kurdish YPG militia against the brutal terror group Islamic State. He tells Arthur Snell what it’s like to cross into a warzone, his book Fighting Evil: The Ordinary Man Who Went To War Against ISIS (£2 on Kindle!) and the shocking, inspiring and sometimes tragic stories of his fellow foreign fighters. “It wasn’t about fighting, it was about standing in solidarity” “Volunteers aren’t all left-wing activists. I’m a card carrying member of the Conservative Party.” “The Kurds are talking about amazing things like women’s rights and gay rights – and it’s all off the back of the most brutal conflict” Presented by 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices