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.
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...
If you're going to break a manifesto pledge to close a yawning output and tax gap, you may as well choose the potentially popular option that actually solves the root cause and improves lives (joining the EU single market) over the really unpopular sticking plaster that doesn't (raising income tax)
October 24, 2025 at 7:56 AM
If you're going to break a manifesto pledge to close a yawning output and tax gap, you may as well choose the potentially popular option that actually solves the root cause and improves lives (joining the EU single market) over the really unpopular sticking plaster that doesn't (raising income tax)
Yorkshire Water bill paid today: £475 for six months! If the mainstream parties want to know why large swathes of the country are seemingly switching over to Reform, their point-blank refusal to take control of the privatised monopolies conspiring against a captive public is a big part of the story.
October 10, 2025 at 5:37 AM
Yorkshire Water bill paid today: £475 for six months! If the mainstream parties want to know why large swathes of the country are seemingly switching over to Reform, their point-blank refusal to take control of the privatised monopolies conspiring against a captive public is a big part of the story.
I've spent almost 20 years reading and sometimes writing about growth, development and industrial policy, and nowhere in any of that literature is economic expansion attributed to keeping the pubs open a bit later
October 9, 2025 at 8:24 AM
I've spent almost 20 years reading and sometimes writing about growth, development and industrial policy, and nowhere in any of that literature is economic expansion attributed to keeping the pubs open a bit later
If the Greens and Lib Dems (currently on 29%, more than Reform) could find a way to coalesce on an anti-Brexit platform with a pledge to pursue EU membership, I reckon their numbers would go through the roof and it would totally transform the terms of debate
Four parties within a 5 point swing of first place and five parties on 12% plus.
This would be pure chaos under first past the post.
This would be pure chaos under first past the post.
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 27% (-2)
LAB: 20% (-2)
CON: 17% (+1)
LDM: 17% (+2)
GRN: 12% (+1)
SNP: 4% (+1)
Via @yougov.co.uk, 5-6 Oct.
Changes w/ 28-29 Sep.
RFM: 27% (-2)
LAB: 20% (-2)
CON: 17% (+1)
LDM: 17% (+2)
GRN: 12% (+1)
SNP: 4% (+1)
Via @yougov.co.uk, 5-6 Oct.
Changes w/ 28-29 Sep.
October 8, 2025 at 6:37 AM
If the Greens and Lib Dems (currently on 29%, more than Reform) could find a way to coalesce on an anti-Brexit platform with a pledge to pursue EU membership, I reckon their numbers would go through the roof and it would totally transform the terms of debate
Probably a bit late to The Studio party, but I actually would love to see a movie about Jonestown directed by Martin Scorsese with Steve Buscemi playing Jim Jones
October 7, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Probably a bit late to The Studio party, but I actually would love to see a movie about Jonestown directed by Martin Scorsese with Steve Buscemi playing Jim Jones
Every cost has a corresponding benefit, so politicians should never be allowed to advocate spending cuts of £XXbn on the basis of supposed "savings" alone
They should be forced to justify the other side of the ledger too: i.e. the likely larger £XXXbn loss of benefits that those cuts would entail
They should be forced to justify the other side of the ledger too: i.e. the likely larger £XXXbn loss of benefits that those cuts would entail
October 6, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Every cost has a corresponding benefit, so politicians should never be allowed to advocate spending cuts of £XXbn on the basis of supposed "savings" alone
They should be forced to justify the other side of the ledger too: i.e. the likely larger £XXXbn loss of benefits that those cuts would entail
They should be forced to justify the other side of the ledger too: i.e. the likely larger £XXXbn loss of benefits that those cuts would entail
If the BBC were still a half-way functioning public service broadcaster, instead of the trivial issue of small boats dominating news bulletins, it would be holding Brexiteers to account on the orders-of-magnitude-higher cost of leaving the EU which is a permanent drag on growth and never mentioned.
September 25, 2025 at 6:37 AM
If the BBC were still a half-way functioning public service broadcaster, instead of the trivial issue of small boats dominating news bulletins, it would be holding Brexiteers to account on the orders-of-magnitude-higher cost of leaving the EU which is a permanent drag on growth and never mentioned.
“If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history”
In the eighteenth century the rise of literacy precipitated the greatest transfer of knowledge into the hands of ordinary men and women in history and helped to destroy the old feudal order in Europe.
As literacy recedes a neo-feudal future looms.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
As literacy recedes a neo-feudal future looms.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
The dawn of the post-literate society
And the end of civilisation
substack.com
September 20, 2025 at 6:36 AM
“If the reading revolution represented the greatest transfer of knowledge to ordinary men and women in history, the screen revolution represents the greatest theft of knowledge from ordinary people in history”
Reposted by Matt Bishop
this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either
September 14, 2025 at 1:50 AM
this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either
Thank heavens the international break is over and we can get back to the real football
September 11, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Thank heavens the international break is over and we can get back to the real football
Niche post for toddler parents, but please be aware that if you visit Cbeebies Land at Alton Towers, you might have to deal with an upset kid when they realise Postman Pat has been demolished in favour of Bluey!
September 10, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Niche post for toddler parents, but please be aware that if you visit Cbeebies Land at Alton Towers, you might have to deal with an upset kid when they realise Postman Pat has been demolished in favour of Bluey!
The real test of Polanski’s political skills will not only be keeping the Greens’ urban and rural tendencies together, but being ambitious enough to try to unite the whole liberal-green-left from Corbyn/Sultana to the Lib Dems under a single coalition of some kind. There’s a huge prize waiting.
September 2, 2025 at 3:11 PM
The real test of Polanski’s political skills will not only be keeping the Greens’ urban and rural tendencies together, but being ambitious enough to try to unite the whole liberal-green-left from Corbyn/Sultana to the Lib Dems under a single coalition of some kind. There’s a huge prize waiting.
Literally the only way to defeat Reform is to renounce actually-existing Brexit, bang on about the costs, and force Farage to go into the election defending ongoing economic stagnation while Sterling is rising and business is clamouring to get back into the EU
If Labour begin preparations for negotiating to rejoin the EU, we could be back in by around 2030-2031, turbocharging Labour's second term.
If they stick to their Brexit maximalist stance then we're not going to be rejoining until the 2040s or later, after the horror of a 2029 Reform government.
If they stick to their Brexit maximalist stance then we're not going to be rejoining until the 2040s or later, after the horror of a 2029 Reform government.
August 29, 2025 at 8:32 AM
Literally the only way to defeat Reform is to renounce actually-existing Brexit, bang on about the costs, and force Farage to go into the election defending ongoing economic stagnation while Sterling is rising and business is clamouring to get back into the EU
Mourinho back to United in a firefighting role - heard it here first!
August 29, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Mourinho back to United in a firefighting role - heard it here first!