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The David McWilliams Podcast
What is Radical Politics?
We like to think of the centre as steady, sensible, and grounded, but what if the “centre” is actually the most radical place in politics right now? The real fault line in modern politics isn’t about tax or spending, it’s about culture. Onn those cultural questions the political class has drifted miles away from the people they claim to represent. In Britain, nearly 9 in 10 people think immigrants should adapt to local customs, yet most MPs don’t. In Germany, it’s the same. In Ireland, the gap is smaller but still real. On economics, tax, spending, capitalism, the public and politicians broadly agree yet on culture, they’re worlds apart. With Financial Times' John Burn-Murdoch, we dig into the numbers from Ireland, the UK, Germany and Denmark, and ask: if the centre has abandoned the centre, who’s really radical anymore?What is Radical Politics?
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47. Inside the World Cup's Narco State
40:31||Season 2026, Ep. 47We head down Mexico way to unpack the country hosting the World Cup, a $1.8 trillion economy living side by side with one of the most powerful criminal networks on earth. Drugs, guns, avocados, and the politics tying Trump and Sheinbaum together whether they like it or not.
46. Why Social Democracies Win World Cups
40:44||Season 2026, Ep. 46The FT's Simon Kuper joins us to kick off our World Cup series, on why tiny social democracies keep producing the best football teams, why FIFA is laundering reputations for dictators, and why this tournament will say more about geopolitics than any leaders' summit this year.
45. The Coming Water Crisis
29:21||Season 2026, Ep. 45Forget oil. The real fight is over the world's most precious and least understood commodity; water. We're joined by Paul O'Callaghan of BlueTech Research to explain why two billion people still can't get safe drinking water, why Saudi Arabia is quietly draining Colorado, and why Ireland's biggest strategic advantage might just be the rain we love to complain about.
44. Why Trump Is About to Come for Ireland
41:02||Season 2026, Ep. 44Made in Kinsale, sold in America, the Ozempic boom is making Ireland rich and dangerously exposed. We unpack how three companies now pay nearly half our corporate tax, and what happens when Trump finally notices.
43. How Trump Could Kill the Dollar
48:29||Season 2026, Ep. 43Monetary historian Brendan Greeley explains why the dollar's power has nothing to do with the Fed, why crypto is just a bank in disguise, and why politicising the dollar might be the fastest way to end its reign as the world's reserve currency.
42. Why Nobody's Having Babies Anymore
50:33||Season 2026, Ep. 42Birth rates are collapsing, not just in rich countries, but everywhere from Mexico to Tunisia. The FT's John Burn-Murdoch joins us to unpack the surprising culprit, why young people aren't just having fewer kids, they're not even coupling up, and what it means for the future of work, wealth,
41. Britain Is Broke
36:03||Season 2026, Ep. 41Britain is running out of money, in a currency it prints itself. We unpack the gilt market panic, Starmer's impossible bind, and why the UK is starting to look more like 1970s Italy than the country that invented modern finance.
40. Immigration: What's The Plan?
44:20||Season 2026, Ep. 40No policy. No plan. No housing. Sinead O'Sullivan is back to explain why Ireland took in more immigrants per head than any country in Europe, and why the middle class is about to feel what the working class has been shouting about for years.
39. China Is Winning, Trump Doesn't Know It Yet
39:45||Season 2026, Ep. 39China is winning, and Trump doesn't know it yet. As the two leaders sit down in Beijing today, we explain why the Chinese think America is an empire in decline, and why they might be right.