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Matthew Brooker

@mbrooker.bsky.social

1.4K followers 1.5K following 1.1K posts

Columnist for Bloomberg Opinion in London. CFA holder, from Slough, 25 years in Hong Kong, 5 in Shanghai. Opinions are my own.

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · Dec 18

It’s four years since I wrote my love letter-cum-elegy to Hong Kong, after almost three decades in this extraordinary city, and two years before leaving permanently. Looking back, I still pretty much like the look of it.

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

A Farewell to the Hong Kong I Loved

The end of a city like no other.

www.bloomberg.com

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 23h

Brother mote eye

on.ft.com/475ahTb Bessent says China wants to ‘pull everybody else down’

Bessent says China wants to ‘pull everybody else down’

US Treasury secretary tells FT that Beijing is trying to hurt the world’s economy

on.ft.com

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 23h

王老师，加油！

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

‘Americans are democracy’s equivalent of second-generation wealth’: a Chinese journalist on the US under Trump

The long read: Once a stalwart of Hong Kong’s journalism scene, Wang Jian has found a new audience on YouTube, dissecting global politics and US-China relations since the pandemic. To his fans, he’s p...

www.theguardian.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 1d

The ECHR has taken over post-Brexit as the symbolic oppressor of Britain’s sovereign freedom. But grandiose gesture of leaving would do little to solve the problem it’s designed to address: immigration. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Britain's Road to a Smaller, Pettier Place

In the days when Britain could still regard itself as a world power, the country played a key role in developing the postwar international architecture that was designed to prevent a repeat of Nazi-er...

www.bloomberg.com

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Reposted by Matthew Brooker

Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 1d

The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage.

Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech"
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 2d

It never happened because it wasn’t 1979 anymore. In the orthodox Conservative mind, after a period of Labour government, it is always 1979. Even when it self-evidently isn’t.

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 2d

bsky.app/profile/kenw...

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 2d

Every time someone makes me read something Peter Thiel said it’s like “Scrooge McDuck is Jesus Christ and Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel and Daisy is Mary Magdalene and that’s why women voting has lowered American sperm count.”

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 2d

Powell is surely gone

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Starmer adviser member of lobby club China 'uses to groom UK elite'

Jonathan Powell was at the heart of the Chinese spying row was a member of a secretive network used by Beijing to cultivate Britain's elites.

www.dailymail.co.uk

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 3d

The Sunday Times says Jingye - which we were all assured was a private company and nothing to do with the state - was willing to waive its compensation for British Steel if China’s London’s mega-embassy was approved.

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 3d

So why are there no women in the Politburo? Not one. Nada

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 3d

Good to know the apocalypse is in safe hands

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 4d

I don’t have time to read this but I’m guessing all is good and the world is in safe hands, yes?

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 4d

Link:

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

www.nytimes.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 4d

And these people want to come over to Europe and lecture us about freedom of speech

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 5d

A spying case collapsed because of a reluctance to call China what it self-evidently is - a threat to the UK’s national security. If this was an attempt to curry favour, it will go unrewarded.

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Is It Really So Hard for the UK to Call China a Threat?

Keir Starmer’s Labour government came into office last year promising to replace the conflicted and repeatedly shifting China policy of its Conservative predecessors with a long-term and strategic app...

www.bloomberg.com

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 7d

If China isn’t a threat to national security then no country is 🤯

on.ft.com/3IxutVG Spying case collapsed after UK refused to label China a ‘threat’, prosecutors say

Spying case collapsed after UK refused to label China a ‘threat’, prosecutors say

Crown Prosecution Service had charged two Britons with espionage offences

on.ft.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 7d

Jenrick is beyond revolting. A disgrace and an embarrassment to himself, his party and basic human decency.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Labour accuses Robert Jenrick of ‘personal attack’ on attorney general

Party source says shadow justice secretary’s comments are attempt to disguise his own poor grip of the law

www.theguardian.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

Din Tai Fung is America’s top-earning restaurant chain and having taken out a small mortgage for half a basket of xiao long bao in London yesterday, I believe it

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

How Din Tai Fung Became America’s Top-Earning Restaurant Chain

The dumpling restaurant was started in Taiwan half a century ago. Now there are 17 always-packed locations in the US, including one in Disneyland.

www.bloomberg.com

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

“a very serious, relevant response to the US’s secretive ruling class and its insidiously normalised Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) roundups: the toxic new Vichyite Trump enthusiasm.”

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

One Battle After Another review – Paul Thomas Anderson’s thrillingly helter-skelter counterculture caper

Anderson updates Thomas Pynchon for the era of Ice roundups, pitting shaggy revolutionary Leonardo DiCaprio against cartoonish forces of reaction

www.theguardian.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

Really enjoyed One Battle After Another. Weird film, befitting the grotesque fascism of our times

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

“So much of the fertile ground that Reform thrives in now was tilled by the Tories. The pugnaciousness and jingoism that arose in the wake of Brexit normalised politics-by-separatism and a kind of permanent contempt for the people who didn’t vote for you”

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Don’t despair, Tories: look upon Reform and see your rightful and fitting legacy | Nesrine Malik

If Kemi Badenoch wonders why her party conference looks and feels like a sideshow, perhaps she should reflect on the Conservatives’ 14 years in power, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

www.theguardian.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

Just in case you needed another reason to love her

KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 9d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

💯

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 8d

Again this is so reminiscent of post-2019 Hong Kong. All resistance is terrorism. What to make of that I don’t know

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 10d

He’s foaming at the mouth to go full Gestapo.

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Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 11d

‘Build, baby, build’ - but not too fast, or too much. Labour’s new towns program is overhyped, but welcome all the same

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

‘Build, Baby, Build’ Oversells Labour’s New Towns

Britain intends to build its first new towns in more than half a century, reviving a landmark program that played a key role in the country’s postwar reconstruction. MAGA-style hats proclaiming “build...

www.bloomberg.com

Matthew Brooker @mbrooker.bsky.social · 13d

The plot thickens

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

China’s fifth-ranking official was suspect in dropped Westminster spy case

Person who was thought to have received intelligence is understood to be Cai Qi, de facto chief of staff to Xi Jinping

www.theguardian.com

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