Omicron cases continue to rise, but will new travel rules actually stem the tide of infections, or is it too late? Plus, as ‘crime week’ begins, traces of drugs have been found in Parliament toilets. Will the PM’s hard-hitting announcements fall on deaf ears? And the latest on last years Number 10 party, which did break Covid rules, but it was in the past so it doesn’t matter, right Mr Raab? “There are so many hurdles to get over in order to travel, this will put a lot of people off.” - Arthur S...
Dec 06, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 471
With The War of The Worlds, H. G. Wells catapulted to international literary success. But how did his adolescence shape the father of science fiction? Journalist and biographer Claire Tomalin talks to Dorian Lynskey about her latest book, The Young H. G. Wells, the author’s complicated love affair with socialism, telling Stalin he was wrong…and how Wells predicted the moonwalk seventy years before it happened. “The Fabians were thrilled to accept young Wells - then dismayed to find he wanted to ...
Dec 05, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 470
Hear all the music on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk It’s the first of two Best Of 2021 editions where we choose the best music, TV and films of a turbulent year. Our special guest is cosmic explorer of northern psychedelia Jane Weaver, whose album ‘Flock’ was one of our favourites this year. Plus journalist, DJ and editor of Umbrella magazine Anthony Teasdale joins us to help Siân and Andrew select the best stuff of the year. Produced and presented by Siân Pattenden and Andrew H...
Dec 04, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 469
Last week 27 people tragically drowned trying to cross the Channel from France, and 2021 has seen a record number of migrants attempt to the treacherous journey. Why is this? And how can we prevent more lives needlessly being lost? Zoe Gardner , policy and advocacy manager at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants , talks to Justin Quirk about why more people than ever are trying to cross the Channel, and how we can make our asylum system work for everyone. “We knew this disaster was co...
Dec 02, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 468
Laundering the dirty cash of kleptocrats is labour-intensive work. So who are the Western bankers, lawyers, accountants, and realtors enabling corruption across the world? Frank Vogl , co-founder of Transparency International, talks to Alex Andreou about his latest book, The Enablers , cleaning up the City of London, how cash launderers still lurk in the least corrupt countries …and why stunning artworks often conceal the ugliest of transactions. “We never have petty corruption without widescale...
Dec 01, 2021•28 min•Season 1Ep. 467
This week’s panel show out early for Patreon people… Oh good, there’s a new variant in town. Is this really the way we wanted to learn the Greek alphabet? Special guest Christina Pagel of independent SAGE takes us through what we know about COVID: The Next Generation. Plus, the horrific drownings in the Channel. And how can we clear up the terrible crimewave caused by a female Doctor Who ? Hear our new series DOOMSDAY WATCH here: https://kite.link/doomsday • “If your family’s not in the UK and y...
Nov 30, 2021•58 min•Season 1Ep. 466
The new Omicron variant is here in Britain, but how worried should we be about it? Will the Government be forced to curb Christmas for a second year running? Plus, as the Channel crisis worsens, will Number 10 take serious action to fix things? And Germany has a new government, what should we expect from Europe’s biggest economy in the coming years? Ros Taylor and Yasmeen Serhan take you through the week ahead. “It’s a very anxious time for a lot of people and it doesn’t help that the holidays a...
Nov 29, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 465
Charlotte Raven was in her mid-30s when she discovered her father was suffering from Huntington’s disease. For her and her family, life would never be the same again. Joined by her doctor Ed Wild, Charlotte talks to Nick Cohen about her memoir Patient 1: Forgetting and Finding Myself, a candid account of her coming to terms with an inherited neurodegenerative disease, how it changed her as a person, and the hope that one day we can eliminate it altogether. “Everyone in my family insulated me fro...
Nov 28, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 464
Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk In this week’s show, Madness frontman SUGGS joins us to talk about everything Nutty Boys. Journalist MICHAEL MORAN gives their take on Get Back, the Peter Jackson’s new epic on The Beatles’ Twickenham sessions, and Marvel’s latest series, Hawkeye. Plus THE ITALIAN JOB – film critic LINDA MARRIC unwraps Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci, the new release with Adam Driver, Lady Gaga and Al Pacino. “We liked dre...
Nov 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 463
Over 130,000 people were killed in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, with most deaths concentrated in Bosnia. But 26 years after the Dayton Peace Agreement, nationalist tensions are re-emerging between Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Bosniak President Bakir Izetbegovic. So are we on the brink of another war in the Balkans - and did it ever end in the first place? Jelena Sofronijevic talks to journalist Una Hajdari and Professor James Ker-Lindsay about what we get wrong on ethnicity, peacekee...
Nov 25, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 462
Around the world democratic values have been in decline, with Hong Kong’s struggle against Beijing one of the clearest examples. Pro-democracy activist Nathan Law was Hong Kong’s youngest legislative councillor, until he was arrested for speaking his mind. Now living in exile here in Britain, he talks to Arthur Snell about his new book Freedom: How we lose it, and how we fight back, the reasons for our recent democratic recession, and how he’s fighting for Hong Kong from afar. “The 2019 protests...
Nov 24, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 461
This week’s panel show out early for Patreon people… And you can hear our new series DOOMSDAY WATCH here: https://kite.link/doomsday The sleaze revelations may be ebbing, but the PM is still under sustained attack from his own MPs. Will a bouncing new Johnson baby save Christmas for the Conservatives? Jelena Sofronijevic joins to discuss what it’s like to graduate into a post-COVID job market and generational tensions in the workplace. Plus, the panel unpack the phenomenon of lockdown pets - vit...
Nov 23, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 460
Northern Powerhouse trains might be derailed, but as the CBI convenes across the country, levelling up is back on the agenda. Could Keir Starmer be on track to dismantle the Government’s shoddy Integrated Rail Plan? And Austria returns to COVID lockdown, what will this mean for booster shots and mandatory vaccination at home? Plus Priti Patel faces pressure over the rise in dinghys in Dover, and do English Channel crossings really constitute a migrant crisis? Naomi Smith and Alex Andreou take yo...
Nov 22, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 459
Running a marathon is no easy feat, but to run one in under 3 hours puts you in the top 5% of runners worldwide. Comedian Paul Tonkinson details his gruelling yet moving journey to break the 3-hour mark in his book 26.2 Miles to Happiness: A Comedian’s Tale of Running, Red Wine and Redemption. He sits down with fellow runner Nick Cohen to talk about the trials and tribulations of beating one of running’s milestone times. “ I wanted to be as honest as possible about the process of running a marat...
Nov 21, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 458
Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk What a difference Adele makes. As Adele’s new album 30 comes out, music journalist EAMONN FORDE joins us to discuss “daydreamers” and “divorce, babes”. Plus film critic ANNA SMITH on THE POWER OF THE DOG, GRUNGE music doc FREAKSCENE, the story of Dinosaur Jr. - and with the re-release of SLADE IN FLAME on deluxe vinyl, we return to the 1974 film. “Adele is my musical football. Enormously popular, but som...
Nov 20, 2021•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 457
COVID may have suspended parliamentary debate, but important decisions were still being taken behind the scenes. So how did we do politics during the pandemic, and how can we do better? Ros Taylor talks to Aveek Bhattacharya , chief economist of the Social Market Foundation, about co-editing his new book, Political Philosophy in a Pandemic, “zombie governments,” and whether COVID shaming is ever acceptable. “Even if you think you know the COVID guidelines, you might not know the rules around a p...
Nov 18, 2021•22 min•Season 1Ep. 456
The Republican Party might be the party of Donald Trump, but how did it get to this place of uncompromising groups with irreconcilable demands? And is something similar about to hit the Democrats? Professor Samuel L. Popkin , academic, consulting analyst in five Democratic Presidential campaigns and author of Crackup: The Republican Implosion and the Future of Presidential Politics , chats to Dorian Lynskey about the rise of Trump, and what it means for the future of American politics. “The grea...
Nov 17, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 455
The curtain has fallen on Glasgow’s climate conference, but is the overtime pact agreed enough to steer the world away from disaster? Plus, as allegations of sleaze continue to pile up, political writer STEVE RICHARDS joins us to discuss whether this is the Government Britain has ever seen. And with stories and hot takes coming at us from every angle these days, how can we best deal with news fatigue? Hear our new series DOOMSDAY WATCH here: https://kite.link/doomsday • “These are pledges not po...
Nov 16, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 454
COP26 came to a close at the weekend, but did India and China scupper an opportunity for real progress on climate change? Does the Glasgow pact go far enough? Plus, a horrific terror attack in Liverpool mars Remembrance Day, what do we know so far? And as sleaze allegations continue to come out, is the Johnson premiership now on a downward trajectory? Naomi Smith and Ros Taylor take you through the week ahead. “India and China are struggling to understand a future without coal.” “Alok Sharma was...
Nov 15, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 453
In England, 50% of the land is owned by just 1% of the population, but how did such a small minority come to control such a large amount of countryside? And what can we do about it? Guy Shrubsole , policy coordinator at Rewilding Britain and author of Who Owns England, chats to Nick Cohen about England’s dark past when it comes to land ownership, and his manifesto for how to open up our countryside once again. “Land ownership is one of England’s deepest, darkest secrets.” “50% of England is owne...
Nov 14, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 452
Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk The artist otherwise known as Malcolm Tucker and the Twelfth Doctor Who, PETER CAPALDI, makes an album with pal DR ROBERT of The Blow Monkeys. The Hogarth of the iPhone COLD WAR STEVE joins us to discuss his bleakly hilarious visions of Plague Island. And new albums from DAMON ALBARN and upcoming psychedelic soul star CURTIS HARDING. Buy Cold War Steve’s Journal Of The Plague Year : https://amzn.to/3wFV5...
Nov 13, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 451
Albania in the 1980s was the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe. It was difficult to visit, and a place of poverty, executions and secret police, but for LSE politics professor Lea Ypi it was also home. She talks to Alex Andreou about her astonishing memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, which details her childhood in one of Europe’s most repressive countries, what came afterwards, and what it truly means to be free. “The fall of the Berlin Wall was brushed aside as something that d...
Nov 11, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 450
When you think about the gig economy, you probably imagine an Uber driver. But one in seven Brits are part of the gig economy, including some teachers and doctors. So what’s behind this global phenomenon? Ros Taylor talks to Rest of World editor Peter Guest about their vast report on how workers in the global South get a worse deal, why women get lower ratings than men, and giving a meaningful platform to platform workers. “There is a great imbalance of power between the platform and the worker....
Nov 10, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 449
British-born US intelligence analyst FIONA HILL, America’s top Russia expert, became an overnight hero when she demolished Donald Trump’s Ukraine hoax before the House Intelligence Committee in 2019. In a fascinating conversation she tells us what it’s like to go up against a strongman’s political machine – and why Trumpism is still dangerous. Plus, is the tide of populism starting to ebb? And what pop songs changed our minds about politics? Hear our new series DOOMSDAY WATCH here: https://kite....
Nov 09, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 448
As Johnson scuttles away from the Owen Paterson debacle and fresh sleaze oozes out, will new Commons regulations mean that MPs have to get by on just the one job like some sort of cave dwellers? Plus, brace yourself for trade war as Lord Frost (no doubt with great regret) prepares to trigger the Article 16 he’s been gagging for since December. And is your poppy leaf at the right angle? Alex Andreou flags up the week ahead. • “The entire Paterson mess is simply because Johnson hates people bother...
Nov 08, 2021•25 min•Season 1Ep. 447
George Orwell was a keen gardener, but did his love of nature influence his politics? Inspired by her encounter with the surviving roses planted at his Hertfordshire cottage, writer Rebecca Solnit talks to Dorian Lynskey about her new book Orwell’s Roses, which looks at how Orwell’s involvement with plants was a catalyst for his work as a writer and antifascist. “When I was young non-fiction was not treated as artwork… Orwell provided a great model for essayism” “Animal farm is a book that Orwel...
Nov 07, 2021•24 min•Season 1Ep. 446
Hear all the music on our podcasts in full on our rolling playlist : https://bit.ly/CultBunk The Wordsworth of Bury GUY GARVEY of Elbow joins us to talk about their transcendent new album ‘Flying Dream 1’, the remarkable story of how he and his wife nursed his mother-in-law Diana Rigg through her last months, and how music fixes everything. And JUDE ROGERS helps us examine that ABBA album, remarkable Netflix drama of racism and identity PASSING, and that weird Princess Di movie SPENCER. • “When ...
Nov 06, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 445
The phrase ‘Net Zero’ has become increasingly prominent in our discourse around climate change, with most countries and businesses pledging to be carbon neutral by 2050. But what will a day in a net zero world look like? What sort of jobs will we be doing? What kind of food will we eat? And how will nights out change? Journalist Jonn Elledge , editor of New Food Magazine Bethan Grylls and Leeds University research fellow Andrew Sudmant join Naomi Smith for a look into our net-zero future. “The w...
Nov 04, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 444
As the world banks its hopes on COP26, we talk live from the conference to the FT’s SIMON MUNDY about his astonishing and sobering book ‘Race For Tomorrow’ – a tour of the frontline of the climate struggle that reads like a thriller. Meanwhile the UK Government concentrates on the far bigger issue of fighting France over FISH. Of course he does! And we watch the BBC’s shocking documentary about the Washington insurrection of Jan 6, ‘Four Hours At The Capitol’. • “For any reporter, this is the bi...
Nov 03, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 443
As climate change becomes a bigger issue, more companies are trying to prove they’re eco-friendly, but are they actually as green as they claim? Alice Bell , climate campaigner and author of Our Biggest Experiment: A History of the Climate Crisis, tells Yasmeen Serhan about the shady practice of greenwashing, where firms mislead consumers about their climate credentials. Which companies are the worst offenders? And what can we do about it? “Greenwashing has become a developed art… it’s all desig...
Nov 02, 2021•23 min•Season 1Ep. 442
