The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Which flavour of police overreach do you like least: COVID regulations if you’re on the right, or the Police Bill if you’re centre-left? Special guest Emily Benn joins us to disentangle the worsening mess of civil rights under this government. And with Line Of Duty returning as British policing is in the spotlight as seldom before, do we need a conversation about “Copaganda” entertainment in the UK, as America had over George Floyd? Plus: what Joe Biden’s New Deal really means.  “The fact that this is an emergency isn’t an excuse for poor legislation and poor scrutiny.” – Emily Benn “Biden is ripping up an economic consensus that has stood for 40 years since Reagan.” – Miatta Fahnbulleh “I don’t know what Centrist is supposed to mean, apart from claiming that someone is boring and lacks ideas… and that’s obviously rubbish.” – Emily Benn Presented and produced by Dorian Lynskey with Miatta Fahnbulleh and Naomi Smith. 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

The EU:UK vaccine export row: who’s in the right and will a friendly phone call from Boris Johnson sort it all out like it always does? On the anniversary of Lockdown 1, will the pandemic regulations face a rocky renewal? And Christmas comes early for lucky Priti Patel as the Bristol rioters breathe life back into her illiberal Police Bill. Alex Andreou sets up the week ahead. “The danger of the Bill is that if peaceful protest is outlawed, then you might as well riot.” “Priti Patel must be absolutely delighted at what she saw in Bristol. She will put rocket boosters on the Police Bill.” 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

A bonus weekend edition… Finding inspiration in the midst of pandemic can be difficult, but how hard is it to write a book about a city you can’t visit because of lockdown? And how has the Church fared during this period of enforced isolation? Author and practising Christian Francis Spufford talks to Ros Taylor about his new novel Light Perpetual, the “incredibly natural” failure of imagination in the midst of this pandemic, and how COVID has left the Church “smaller and wobblier” than ever before. “The ordinariness of the Blitz leaps out at me… people woke up having survived the night, dusted themselves down and went to work” “People will sit in cafes and ride on trains again… they’ll regard this as the weird glitch of 2020” “COVID has been catastrophic for the church… it will emerge smaller and wobblier than before the pandemic started” 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Grenfell tragedy exposed the worst of a housing crisis which affects some 8 million people and leaves one in seven people in unaffordable or unsuitable homes. How did we get into this mess and how do we get out of it? Why can’t we build enough houses in the right places? Alex Andreou talks to Catherine Ryder, Director of Policy and Research at the National Housing Federation, and Steve Cole of the country’s largest social landlord the Clarion Group, about beating a huge challenge that has defeated successive governments.  “Housing Minister is THE big churn post in government. Everyone comes in with one big thing they want to do…” – Steve Cole “I know only a handful of people in the UK who live where they did ten years ago, and only a handful of people in Greece who DON’T.” – Alex Andreou “There’s been a huge flip from government building supply to supporting demand… The housing benefit bill is £23bn.” – Steve Cole 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For British intelligence, Soviet mole George Blake was possibly the most damaging traitor of the whole Cold War. Towards the end of Blake’s life the FT’s Simon Kuper met the ageing defector for “the most extraordinary interview of my life.” He tells Arthur Snell about his book The Happy Traitor, which sets out Blake’s astonishing journey from comically patriotic British citizen through his time of treachery in an unbelievably complacent British intelligence service to an escape from justice that came straight from a cartoon story. Why did Blake do it? And did he in some sense get away with it? “For a decade, every secret of British intelligence was handed over to the Soviets by Blake.” “By his own reckoning Blake betrayed several hundred British agents, many of whom were executed.”  “I was told that Blake detested Putin’s gaudy KGB capitalism… but he depended on Putin for his dacha.” Presented by Arthur Snell. 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

Is Britain as divided over COVID as we were over Brexit? Do people really think that if you lost your job during the pandemic, it’s your fault? And if Brexity pundits are so anti-lockdown, why are Leave voters largely in favour of restrictions? Bobby Duffy (Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College ) and Paula Surridge (Deputy Director of the UK in a Changing Europe) have researched our changing attitudes with surprising results. They tell Ros Taylor about the deep impulses driving politics – and whether Leave vs Remain identities might finally be breaking down.  “Even though we’ve seen a transfer of wealth from young to old, we just don’t see people saying Let’s take from the old and give to the young” – Bobby Duffy “Leave/Remain is often seen as a generation gap but it’s more to do with education.” – Paula Surridge “There is an opportunity to reimagine our economy… but it won’t come easy.” – Bobby Duffy “Real lockdown scepticism is actually a rarity… It doesn’t bring people together across the political spectrum, it splits them up” – Bobby Duffy Presented by Ros Taylor. 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

The Metropolitan Police’s brutal intervention during Saturday’s vigil Sarah Everard leaves the country aghast. What really happened? What needs to change if British cities are to be safe for women? Special guest Alex Massie of The Times and The Spectator joins us to look at the “fantastically illiberal” Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and give his personal crash course on Scottish politics for the inattentive English.  “A lot of forces who are no friend of women are jumping on this issue for their own motives.” – Ayesha Hazarika “Just as Independence was underpriced in 2014, Unionism is underpriced in 2021.” – Alex Massie “In politics, success is sweet but it’s not half as sweet as your enemy’s failure.” – Alex Massie Presented and produced by Andrew Harrison with Yasmeen Serhan and Ayesha Hazarika. 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

The Met’s outrageous clampdown on the Sarah Everard vigil on Clapham Common has put Priti Patel’s draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill under a harsh spotlight. Could a bill that effectively outlaws public protest blow up in the Government’s face this week? Ros Taylor explains.  “Public protest has become illegal, and we didn’t seem to notice that.”  “A protest looks very different when it’s women doing it.” 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Peter explains better than anyone I know the new world of Putinesque, Trumpian propaganda.” In a weekend bonus, Nick Cohen of The Observer talks to Peter Pomerantsev, author of This Is Not Propaganda : Adventures in the War Against Reality, about how demagogues warp free speech into a weapon against democracy.Why is the modern information battle less of a New Cold War and more a New Thirty Years War? Do we even understand the devil’s bargain that tech giants are offering? We can have perfect lives and perfect homes – as long as we don’t mind giving up our information and our freedoms.  “Every aspect of freedom of speech has been used against us, to swamp the world and drown out the truth” “However much we’d like to blame these pathologies on Mark Zuckerberg, we can’t.” “It’s no longer about censorship, it’s about overloading democracies with trolls, bots and conspiracies… it’s about swamping us with information” “When you have an economy based on likes and shares, that’s going to reinforce tribal identities” “Extremism is about demonising the other. What we’re seeing is something eternal” 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

Few countries exercise such world-wide fascination while being as little understood outside their own borders as Japan. Christopher Harding, author of The Japanese: A History In 20 Lives, talks to Ros Taylor about the key figures who shaped Japan over the centuries, from princesses and samurai to pop culture visionaries. “A British delegate who visited Japan in the 1990s said ‘If this is a recession, then I want one’” “Japan needs more babies, more immigrants, more robots.” “People fall in love with some element of Japan… but we don’t have a joined up sense of Japanese history.” 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 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices