The Bilbao Blueprint

The David McWilliams Podcast

David McWilliams

News & Politics

4.6 • 643 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We're in Bilbao this week, and it’s got us thinking. How does a football club that refuses to sign non-Basque players manage to qualify for the Champions League, raking in close to €100 million from TV rights, match days, and UEFA money, while Dublin’s best bet is a few fivers from the Conference League? The answer is in economics. The Basques were Europe’s forgotten industrialists, the only region in Spain to undergo a full-blown Industrial Revolution, powered by local iron ore, steel production, and a shipbuilding boom that made Bilbao Spain’s biggest port by 1900. Then they lost it all. Globalisation, China, and the EU opened the floodgates. Unlike post-industrial towns in the UK or Ireland, Bilbao didn’t roll over. They moved the port. They built the Guggenheim. They chose ambition. And they proved that even a small, isolated, ancient people, who speak a pre-Ice Age language with no known relatives, can build a modern economy with global reach. What’s our excuse?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before we start, John, I am reading a book that you are absolutely going to love,
0:08.9	which is called Skad for Life by the bass player and founding member of the specials Horace
0:15.0	Panter who is coming to Dokey.
0:18.0	That is going to be a humdinger.
0:20.2	All you rude boys, all you nutty boys, anyone with a pair of stay press, anyone with
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0:26.7	Harrington Jacket, I've got to dust it down already.
0:29.3	This is the gig for you.
0:31.4	Friday the 13th in Kula at 9pm, the story of the specials by the man who founded the specials, Horace
0:40.4	Panter. You're going to love it, John. I know loads of our mates are going to love it.
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