Matt Bishop
@matthewlbishop.bsky.social
Political economist @Sheffield. Co-Director @ODI Resilient & Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI). Home: Yorkshire. Heart: T&T. Does development, small states, drug policy. Co-presents Small Islands, Big Picture pod. Occasionally plays electronic records.
Reposted by Matt Bishop
As the world heats, places become increasing unliveable. Who pays? #NomadCentury
Court Orders the Netherlands to Protect a Caribbean Island From Climate Change
www.nytimes.com
January 30, 2026 at 9:51 AM
As the world heats, places become increasing unliveable. Who pays? #NomadCentury
Wrote this over a decade ago on £9k student fees and much of it still holds. The question is not “why should non-graduates pay for people to go to university?” but why have those who went for free offloaded the cost on to today’s young people: speri-blog.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog/2013/pr...
SPERI Blog - Progressive taxation
All posts
speri-blog.sites.sheffield.ac.uk
January 30, 2026 at 7:51 AM
Wrote this over a decade ago on £9k student fees and much of it still holds. The question is not “why should non-graduates pay for people to go to university?” but why have those who went for free offloaded the cost on to today’s young people: speri-blog.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/blog/2013/pr...
Plenty of French politicians simultaneously serve as mayors, both local and regional, while holding seats in the national legislature. Chirac was Mayor of Paris and a Deputy in the Assemblée Nationale and Prime Minster (and an MEP at one point).
January 25, 2026 at 8:35 PM
Plenty of French politicians simultaneously serve as mayors, both local and regional, while holding seats in the national legislature. Chirac was Mayor of Paris and a Deputy in the Assemblée Nationale and Prime Minster (and an MEP at one point).
Danny Boyle et al have absolutely nailed the 28 Years Later trilogy so far: it's really hard to see how these movies could have been any better, utterly breathtaking from start to finish
January 23, 2026 at 2:27 PM
Danny Boyle et al have absolutely nailed the 28 Years Later trilogy so far: it's really hard to see how these movies could have been any better, utterly breathtaking from start to finish
The US hasn’t been truly hegemonic since the 1970s
Should things escalate further and today goes down in history as the end of American hegemony future UK historians may be surprised to find the papers focusing on the Beckhams falling out.
January 21, 2026 at 3:16 PM
The US hasn’t been truly hegemonic since the 1970s
It's 2026 and we still haven't got to the bottom of the mystery of who, exactly, is telling students not to use subheadings in essays
January 16, 2026 at 1:26 PM
It's 2026 and we still haven't got to the bottom of the mystery of who, exactly, is telling students not to use subheadings in essays
The word “essay” doing a lot of heavy lifting here
January 11, 2026 at 8:58 AM
The word “essay” doing a lot of heavy lifting here
There's an alternative timeline in football history where Man United never re-signed Ronaldo and Solskjaer is still the manager, delivering regular top-four finishes and decent attacking football with a team featuring lots of academy players
January 6, 2026 at 11:21 AM
There's an alternative timeline in football history where Man United never re-signed Ronaldo and Solskjaer is still the manager, delivering regular top-four finishes and decent attacking football with a team featuring lots of academy players
Reposted by Matt Bishop
While many argue that dangerous criminals must be treated as such, and that this strategy is essential to suffocating Maduro’s regime, the truth is that this was yet another example of how Venezuelan suffering has been normalized, minimized, and tokenized …
globalvoices.org/2026/01/05/a...
globalvoices.org/2026/01/05/a...
A new, terrifying sound
“I thought Venezuelans had already heard every sound the country’s violence had to offer. But this was something new — terrifying in its unfamiliarity.”
globalvoices.org
January 5, 2026 at 11:44 PM
While many argue that dangerous criminals must be treated as such, and that this strategy is essential to suffocating Maduro’s regime, the truth is that this was yet another example of how Venezuelan suffering has been normalized, minimized, and tokenized …
globalvoices.org/2026/01/05/a...
globalvoices.org/2026/01/05/a...
Reposted by Matt Bishop
Insightful podcast
🚨🚨EMERGENCY EPISODE🚨🚨
Very few people can claim to have met and known 🇻🇪's Maduro, Chavez & interim president Delcy Rodriguez. Well, my guest @catheriner.bsky.social, former 🇬🇧 ambassador in Caracas, is one of them and she spoke to me earlier today.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
Very few people can claim to have met and known 🇻🇪's Maduro, Chavez & interim president Delcy Rodriguez. Well, my guest @catheriner.bsky.social, former 🇬🇧 ambassador in Caracas, is one of them and she spoke to me earlier today.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...
January 5, 2026 at 12:29 AM
Insightful podcast
Wrong Opin
Stranger Things should have ended after one season.
December 16, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Wrong Opin
Reposted by Matt Bishop
open.substack.com/pub/johnacar...
youtu.be/yBFIz_N3wqY?...
Unimaginable pain and fear…and no end in sight? What are neighbouring Caribbean islands doing? What will they do? How long can this continue?
@janvoordouw.bsky.social
@strongercaribbean.bsky.social
@susangoffe.bsky.social
#Haiti
youtu.be/yBFIz_N3wqY?...
Unimaginable pain and fear…and no end in sight? What are neighbouring Caribbean islands doing? What will they do? How long can this continue?
@janvoordouw.bsky.social
@strongercaribbean.bsky.social
@susangoffe.bsky.social
#Haiti
Haiti's Dire Condition--December 2025
See this video.
open.substack.com
December 11, 2025 at 3:36 AM
open.substack.com/pub/johnacar...
youtu.be/yBFIz_N3wqY?...
Unimaginable pain and fear…and no end in sight? What are neighbouring Caribbean islands doing? What will they do? How long can this continue?
@janvoordouw.bsky.social
@strongercaribbean.bsky.social
@susangoffe.bsky.social
#Haiti
youtu.be/yBFIz_N3wqY?...
Unimaginable pain and fear…and no end in sight? What are neighbouring Caribbean islands doing? What will they do? How long can this continue?
@janvoordouw.bsky.social
@strongercaribbean.bsky.social
@susangoffe.bsky.social
#Haiti
Loving all the pictures of groaning American Thanksgiving tables and wondering why stuffing our Christmas turkey with marshmallows instead of boring old chestnuts and caking our spuds in maple syrup has never caught on.
November 28, 2025 at 6:35 AM
Loving all the pictures of groaning American Thanksgiving tables and wondering why stuffing our Christmas turkey with marshmallows instead of boring old chestnuts and caking our spuds in maple syrup has never caught on.
Up nice and early for day three of the Ashes test. Wonderful way to spend a rainy Sunday winter morning. Should be a belter.
November 23, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Up nice and early for day three of the Ashes test. Wonderful way to spend a rainy Sunday winter morning. Should be a belter.
Has there ever been a British footballer as criminally underrated as Scott McTominay?
November 19, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Has there ever been a British footballer as criminally underrated as Scott McTominay?
So it turns out that demonising migrants and making it nigh-on impossible for refugees to gain citizenship isn't a great vote-winner for the left, after all www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Social Democrats in Denmark suffer sweeping election losses
PM Mette Frederiksen’s centre-left party loses control of Copenhagen for first time in more than 100 years
www.theguardian.com
November 19, 2025 at 4:00 PM
So it turns out that demonising migrants and making it nigh-on impossible for refugees to gain citizenship isn't a great vote-winner for the left, after all www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...
Not sure where this institutionally biased left-wing BBC was hiding during the Brexit and Corbyn years
November 11, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Not sure where this institutionally biased left-wing BBC was hiding during the Brexit and Corbyn years
Er no, small businesses were betrayed *by* Brexit which pulled them out of a market of 500m consumers www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
Farage says small business owners who thought Brexit would cut regulation have been betrayed – UK politics live
Reform UK leader claims that burden of regulation is worse than before the referendum
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Er no, small businesses were betrayed *by* Brexit which pulled them out of a market of 500m consumers www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...
I’m old enough to remember when Liverpool won the transfer the window, everyone else packed up and went home and all the bookies paid out before the season even started
November 10, 2025 at 11:33 AM
I’m old enough to remember when Liverpool won the transfer the window, everyone else packed up and went home and all the bookies paid out before the season even started
Companies that allow you to sign up for a service online should be legally obliged to make it easy for you to cancel online too
November 5, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Companies that allow you to sign up for a service online should be legally obliged to make it easy for you to cancel online too
It shows just how far editorial standards have fallen at the BBC when its flagship radio news programme can describe Zohran Mamdani — a man espousing the kinds of post-war consensus policies pursued by even right-wing governments until the 1980s — as a "radical left-populist"
November 5, 2025 at 1:23 PM
It shows just how far editorial standards have fallen at the BBC when its flagship radio news programme can describe Zohran Mamdani — a man espousing the kinds of post-war consensus policies pursued by even right-wing governments until the 1980s — as a "radical left-populist"
Over a year I go I wrote about why small islands, like Jamaica, need their own Marshall Plan. It is simply not defensible for countries regularly hit by devastating hurricanes that are no fault of their own to have to bear the costs of repeated rebuilding alone globalvoices.org/2024/05/24/w...
Why small islands need their own Marshall Plan
The Fourth UN Conference on Small Island Developing States will negotiate a 10-year agenda that requires an unprecedented financing package to meet the existential scale of the challenge being faced.
globalvoices.org
October 29, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Over a year I go I wrote about why small islands, like Jamaica, need their own Marshall Plan. It is simply not defensible for countries regularly hit by devastating hurricanes that are no fault of their own to have to bear the costs of repeated rebuilding alone globalvoices.org/2024/05/24/w...
Thinking of everyone in Jamaica and the rest of the northern Caribbean right now.
October 28, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Thinking of everyone in Jamaica and the rest of the northern Caribbean right now.
The financialisation of football has been a total disaster. We need an entire rethink, with a basic principle being that all clubs should only ever be owned by their fans for the benefit of their communities, not agents, carpetbaggers, or media companies
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
Sheffield Wednesday: Championship club enter administration
Sheffield Wednesday have been placed into administration after it was revealed last week that His Majesty's Revenue & Customs were set to issue a winding-up petition against the club.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 12:01 PM
The financialisation of football has been a total disaster. We need an entire rethink, with a basic principle being that all clubs should only ever be owned by their fans for the benefit of their communities, not agents, carpetbaggers, or media companies
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...