Matthew Brooker
Columnist for Bloomberg Opinion in London. CFA holder, from Slough, 25 years in Hong Kong, 5 in Shanghai. Opinions are my own.
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerFrance’s Foreign Ministry owns Elon Musk in this response:
- He’s such a mark www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/w...
- Labour risks an election wipeout unless it does a lot of things, frankly
- Why do BBC radio journalists keep calling him Ji Jinping? How hard is it?
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerBring him home: RSF calls for Sir Keir Starmer to demand release of British publisher Jimmy Lai during visit to China newsbeep.com/uk/391872/ Lai has been found guilty of offences under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which has widely been condemned by…
- They voted for it
- I still remember vividly reading this NYT headline in October 2024, sitting in a coffee shop in Boston, a fortnight before the presidential election #Minneapolis
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerI still remember vividly reading this NYT headline in October 2024, sitting in a coffee shop in Boston, a fortnight before the presidential election #Minneapolis
- The lawless London story propagated by Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and an army of AI social-media personalities is a test case of the ability to impose a manufactured political narrative on an uncompliant reality www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- Happy Royal Mint embassy day
- First time back in Hong Kong in three years. Complicated feelings. I still love the place, it endures, I don’t regret leaving
- “No, Officer Pryzbylewski, he did not piss you off. He made you fear for your safety and that of your fellow officers.”
- “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerAOC: This has now become what we feared most about ICE for a long time—that it would be used as an anti-civilian force with no accountability. At the end of the day, what we saw today was a murder, and murders in cold blood need to be prosecuted.
- Martin Chivers and Terry Yorath RIP. Two names that are among my earliest football memories
- This is the time of monsters
- Not for the first time, this is reminiscent of what the Chinese Communist Party-controlled government did in Hong Kong, where everyone who protested, no matter how peacefully, was subsequently deemed a “rioter”
- The Department of Homeland Security accused the victim of being a "rioter" and that the ICE officer who pulled the trigger was "fearing for his life." Mayor Jacob Frey rejected claims of self-defense. n.pr/3YNX6Cx
- Reposted by Matthew Brookerbefore Metropolis (1927) there was ✨“Metro-land”✨ (1910) I think we need to fundamentally rethink our megacities, but that requires thinking about our history, economics, infrastructure, colonial power, cultural pressures — while still retaining some creative imagination and hope for the future 😭
- A 1930s horror of urban sprawl shouldn’t be dictating Britain’s housing policy in the 2020s www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- A 1930s horror of urban sprawl shouldn’t be dictating Britain’s housing policy in the 2020s www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- He used his positions to enrich himself. Is that bad now?
- The free speech people really don’t like the wrong kind of free speech
- Top comment on the FT story
- Utterly pathetic, @nationaltrust.org.uk
- “sorry not sorry”
- Polesdon Lacey is overflowing with people who simply cannot believe it is closed on a normal winter’s day @nationaltrust.org.uk Nothing on the web site when we set off 1.5 hours ago. I’ve spoken to other people who have traveled similar distances. We are all flabbergasted
- Utterly pathetic, @nationaltrust.org.uk
- Look at how busy the car park is. People still arriving
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerIt's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerVery much all of this. The many Brits bashing the capital are very useful idiots for overseas efforts to undermine the country imho. As I've said before, it's time to push back at the nonsense
- RIP Isiah Whitlock. Another cast member lost from the greatest TV series of all time www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d...
- Brilliant forensic tracing of the shadow Chinese fleet used to evade sanctions on Russia’s LNG www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...
- Reposted by Matthew Brooker[This post could not be retrieved]
- Martin Thorley's "All That Glistens" is a salutary tale on what happens when an open and money-driven political culture comes into contact with a highly disciplined, strategically minded and secretive one-party system www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerGood interview in the paper, this. I think Sadiq is right: London 'needs' to be less successful than it is for a bunch of political arguments here in the UK to work, hence the fictions being invented about it:
- The decade of renewal has not started well. When the policies of left and right prove equally impotent, we should look more closely at the machinery. Loss of state capacity is Britain’s biggest challenge www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
- America, land of the free, where they ban books, just like China does and the Nazis did. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/feat...
- But don’t forget kids, it’s Europe that has a problem with free speech!
- (Trump has also claimed that transgender people do not exist. McBride disputes the claim.) “Does Big Brother exist?” “Of course he exists. The Party exists. Big Brother is the embodiment of the Party.” “Does he exist in the same way as I exist?” “You do not exist,” said O’Brien.
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View full thread“MAGA’s racial and anti-intellectual campaigns have metastasized through the US. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has been producing social media about a wholesome White homeland and nefarious “foreign invaders” reminiscent of Nazi propaganda from nearly a century ago.”
- The tactics bear a striking resemblance to those of private parking management companies ie proceeding straight to threats and intimidation with no good faith process for challenging claims www.theguardian.com/money/2025/d...
- “Your words will disappear. Your house will disappear. Your name will disappear. All memory of you will disappear.” Sansa Stark’s last words to Ramsay Bolton come back to me for some reason
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerBest China Books of 2025 @chinabooksreview.com: great list with @emilyzfeng.bsky.social Dan Wang @evadou.bsky.social @patrickmcgee.bsky.social Barbara Demick and others. I just ordered the book by Minxin Pei. Huge thanks to @vicshih.bsky.social for including me chinabooksreview.com/2025/12/18/b...
- Beyond belief He Recorded China’s Detention of Uyghurs. The U.S. Wants to Deport Him to Uganda. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/u...
- “Truth, though powerless and always defeated in a head-on clash with the powers that be, possesses a strength of its own: whatever those in power may contrive, they are unable to discover or invent a viable substitute for it.” - Hannah Arendt www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
- What an incredibly brave man
- This is the weirdest photo I’ve seen in quite some while
- Kate Bush fans reenacting “Wuthering Heights” in Yorkshire www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
- This film looks truly awful, based on the trailer
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerX est un réseau néo-nazi organisé et orienté pour promouvoir des contenus néonazi. En restant actif là-bas, vous ne luttez pas (et surtout pas à armes égales) mais vous contribuez à le légitimer en lui donnant un vernis de pluralisme. C'est comme écrire pour le courrier des lecteurs de Rivarol.
- Great column on dentists from Sarah O’Connor at the FT How can you be a “net contributor” when a shambolic bureaucracy prevents you from becoming one? www.ft.com/content/f4e5...
- How can you become a “net contributor” when a shambolic bureaucracy prevents you from doing so? www.ft.com/content/f4e5... Why Britain doesn’t have enough dentists
- British universities’ reliance on Chinese fees fuelling self-censorship, say academics www.ft.com/content/a123...
- “Our universities are, in a way, sleepwalking into a state of super-complex surrender, so to speak,” he said. “Sheffield Hallam is the warning bell.” - Andreas Fulda, Nottingham university
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerThis is so disgusting.
- “They can announce to the world that the people still believe in the system, believe in the government and believe in the pro-establishment party,” said Mr. Yam, who now lives in Britain. The problem is that the people very obviously don’t www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/w...
- “During the last election in 2021, only 30 percent of registered voters cast a ballot. That was the lowest rate in decades and nearly half the record-high turnout in 2016, long before a national security law imposed in 2020 effectively wiped out the pro-democracy opposition.” Today: 31%
- Reposted by Matthew BrookerWhy bother to participate in this #XiJinping #JohnLee political sham? It is by no stretch an election.
- “We are the largest single market — do they want us to close it?” - European diplomat No, Beijing thinks it can make the EU eat it. It’s up to the EU to prove them wrong. Get serious about protectionism or accept accelerated deindustrialisation. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
- “just because it’s stupid doesn’t mean it won’t inherit the Earth.”
- I would say this because I edited it but @mshannahmurphy.bsky.social's piece on tech bros founding their own for-profit cities really is unmissable reading www.ft.com/content/b127...
- They have learned nothing. They will squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until they get another reaction, all the while blaming pernicious foreign intervention for the situation they themselves have created hongkongfp.com/2025/12/05/h...
