Matthew Brooker
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mbrooker.bsky.social
Matthew Brooker
@mbrooker.bsky.social
Columnist for Bloomberg Opinion in London. CFA holder, from Slough, 25 years in Hong Kong, 5 in Shanghai. Opinions are my own.
Pinned
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
“I think today we are living in a complicated world, where life is more like a shattered mirror,” he says. “It reflects the reality, but the reality can be a broken reality.”

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
‘Was I scared going back to China? No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, western censorship and returning home
He has been jailed, tracked and threatened by China’s government. What was it like pay a visit home? As he publishes a polemic about surveillance and state control, he relives a momentous trip to see ...
www.theguardian.com
February 9, 2026 at 7:28 AM
The sky is darkening and the beast is close at hand

#LordoftheFlies
February 8, 2026 at 10:11 PM
“How, moreover, can you claim to have been duped by Mandelson but then expect us to believe you aren’t being duped by China?”

www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
Labour can’t claim to be the nice party any more
We’ve heard the ‘one bad apple’ defence before and it doesn’t work for them any more than it did for the Tories
www.thetimes.com
February 8, 2026 at 12:32 PM
Bezos’s goal seems to be to convert what Donald Trump used to call the “Amazon Washington Post” into a harmless shell of its former self as a display of knee-bending

www.ft.com/content/5ca3...
Bezos’s calculated vandalism of the Washington Post
He is just one of several pro-Trump oligarchs who now control key sections of the US media
www.ft.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:42 PM
Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai will be sentenced following his conviction in a national security trial, according to the Chinese territory’s judiciary.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...
Hong Kong to sentence media mogul Jimmy Lai on national security conviction
Lai's case has been condemned internationally by free speech advocates, human rights groups and global leaders.
www.aljazeera.com
February 6, 2026 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
💯
February 4, 2026 at 8:14 PM
Common decency is underrated. I love to read about people who were repulsed by Epstein and never went near him again
February 5, 2026 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
Vive la France!
February 5, 2026 at 10:45 AM
Sounds like a bit of a Trumpian qualification

“Starmer had said documents involving Mandelson, demanded by the Conservatives, would be released unless they breached national security or damaged Britain’s international relations.”

www.ft.com/content/e4f5...
Starmer engulfed in leadership speculation as he backtracks over Mandelson papers
Prime minister agrees to parliamentary oversight of release of documents about peer’s appointment as ambassador to US
www.ft.com
February 5, 2026 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
France’s Foreign Ministry owns Elon Musk in this response:
February 4, 2026 at 10:33 AM
In Beijing, British Prime Minister Sees ‘Huge Opportunities’
www.nytimes.com
January 29, 2026 at 7:44 AM
Why do BBC radio journalists keep calling him Ji Jinping? How hard is it?
January 28, 2026 at 8:24 AM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
Bring him home: RSF calls for Sir Keir Starmer to demand release of British publisher Jimmy Lai during visit to China

https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/391872/

Lai has been found guilty of offences under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which has widely been condemned by…
Bring him home: RSF calls for Sir Keir Starmer to demand release of British publisher Jimmy Lai during visit to China - United Kingdom News Beep
Lai has been found guilty of offences under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which has widely been condemned by human rights organisations as draconian,
www.newsbeep.com
January 26, 2026 at 9:00 PM
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
January 25, 2026 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
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
January 24, 2026 at 10:16 PM
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...
London Isn't the Crime Hellhole of US Fantasy
It’s surreal living in a war zone when you can’t see the war. London is under assault: Crime is “through the roof,” creating no-go areas and rendering the city unrecognizable, according to US Presiden...
www.bloomberg.com
January 23, 2026 at 10:47 AM
Happy Royal Mint embassy day
January 20, 2026 at 8:15 AM
First time back in Hong Kong in three years. Complicated feelings. I still love the place, it endures, I don’t regret leaving
January 18, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Matthew Brooker
AOC: 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.
January 8, 2026 at 12:05 AM
Martin Chivers and Terry Yorath RIP. Two names that are among my earliest football memories
January 8, 2026 at 8:38 AM
“No, Officer Pryzbylewski, he did not piss you off. He made you fear for your safety and that of your fellow officers.”
January 8, 2026 at 7:23 AM
This is the time of monsters
January 7, 2026 at 9:34 PM
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”
npr.org NPR @npr.org · Jan 7
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
ICE agent fatally shoots woman in Minneapolis amid immigration crackdown
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
January 7, 2026 at 8:46 PM