iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Hard to believe it’s been a year since I left journalism.

Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

My whole life, I have been fiercely proud to be from Belfast, in spite of all of its troubles. It’s hard to be proud today.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Ten years later and still my favourite social media comment 😂

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It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Brooklyn Beckham: it's time to address the shadowy shape that's difficult to photograph in the room

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Surely this entitles me to some sort of personal thank you from big Melv?

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

So I suppose it’s about time I told those of you who still care exactly what I’m going to be doing with my life from now on 😂 In a couple of weeks, I’m incredibly fortunate to be taking up a role at investment manager Baillie Gifford. Here’s to no more 4am alarms…

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Congratulations to all those getting exam results today, but in particular my nearly 70 year old father who just smashed an A in his AS Level Irish 👊🏻🇮🇪 Still got it, Da!

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

I swear to God, this bloody country. I need antibiotics. I ordinarily live in London. But am temporarily resident in Northern Ireland. My GP in England tells me they are unable to send a prescription outside of England. So what’s the alternative? You guessed it: A&E. No wonder there’s a crisis.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

And that, as they say, is that. It’s been a hell of a ride. You stay classy, Bluesky.

A picture of me in the Sky News autocue pointing at the text “Matt is out, goodbye”

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Just had a prospective buyer massively lowball our flat, and then try and explain that he “has a LISA and won’t get the Government bonus if he buys a flat over £450k.” Well, I mean… don’t view flats way over your budget then? It’s not my problem.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

Anyone else notice how social media is now absolutely swamped with ChatGPT guff? Just account after account with their thoughts entirely scripted by AI. The syntax is so obvious—not to mention the em dashes that nobody actually used until about a year ago. Driving me mad.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Some personal news. In a couple of weeks, I am leaving Sky News. And indeed, leaving London, and journalism altogether. It’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but it’s one that’s best for me and my family. I’ll be moving to Edinburgh, and into the world of finance.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

BREAK: Police have charged a member of the Irish rap group Kneecap with a terror offence. Liam O’Hanna has been charged with displaying a Hizbollah flag at the O2 Forum in London last November. He’ll appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 18th June.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

In the gym. Forgot headphones. Big mistake. Now listening to two enormous blokes segway *seamlessly* from discussing the benefits of taking steroids, to how they never took the COVID jab, because, and I quote “I’m not having anyone inject any old shit into me”. Beyond parody.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

It’s 5am. I’m driving to work, and there are *scores* of people out jogging. Some in fancy dress. Clearly it’s marathon related, but why?? Why are people jogging before dawn when they’re about to run a literal marathon?

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Just amazing how American liberals can essentialise weird racialised views about being British in ways they would never never tolerate in America.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

By “token immigrants” do you mean… British people born and raised in Britain? Weird “progressive” opinion to have, tbh.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

BREAKING: The Supreme Court unanimously rules that “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. Ruling against the Scottish Government. But Lord Hodge cautions against seeing this as a victory for one side or the other. Suggests some nuance to follow.

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Megan Cassella @megancnbc.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

TL;DR: The new U.S. tariff rate against our two largest trading partners is either 10%, 25% or 35%, and so far no one I've reached out to at the White House is able to tell me which.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

As a rule, democracies ought not to fight trade wars with autocracies. See this Economist piece from 2019: www.economist.com/graphic-deta... TL;DR: Regimes with no voters don’t much care about imposing tariffs that hurt their own economies.

economist.com

Why you should never start a trade war with an autocracy

Unlike the EU, China seems willing to pay any price to punish Donald Trump’s voters

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I have just encountered the phrase “picking up nickels in front of a steamroller” to describe the strategies hedge funds often use to make small profits, but on the kinds of trades that may now crash the whole system. And thought I would share, because it’s brilliant. on.ft.com/429y43e

on.ft.com

US Treasuries sell-off deepens as ‘safe haven’ status challenged

Investors say misfiring ‘basis trades’ piling pressure on US government bond market

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

This is a fantastic analogy. Why Trump’s America - if we believe the justifications put forward by his economic adviser Stephen Miran - is behaving like a modern Athens towards the Delian League. Which worked out well for them. (It didn’t - ask Sparta) othermeans.io/p/the-americ...

othermeans.io

The American Delian League

Alliances as Extortion Rackets

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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 07/04/2025

Trump now worse than a global killer disease, not yet as bad as Hitler's tanks rolling into France and the Low Countries. More as we get it.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

Downing St official: “Trump has done something we don’t agree with but there’s a reason why people are behind him on this.” Are they? The data I’ve seen is that Trump is haemorrhaging support on his economic agenda. Such a weird thing to conclude from all this.

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Incredible timing as Sky News throw to Katie Barnfield in Newcastle just seconds before Newcastle United score. Couldn’t make it up.

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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

🦅📉

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

There was a very interesting piece in @foreignaffairs.com this month on exactly this. The point being that the breakdown of democracy doesn’t have to mean a leap to full-fat, no-elections autocracy. But the weaponsiation of state apparatus against the opposition, so elections aren’t a fair fight.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Watching my daughter build precarious towers of wooden blocks, and seeing analogies for the Liberal International Order. I think that might be enough internet for today…

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

One thing is clear. We’re all going to have to start paying a lot more in tax. Or cutting some stuff we really like. Perhaps both. I wonder how long Labour’s manifesto pledges can hold?

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Owen Winter @owenwntr.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

After the AfD's surge on Sunday, far right parties are the most voted-for of any grouping in Europe, for the first time in history: www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

I appreciate we need to actually get through the next four years first. But here’s a head scratcher. How does a nation like America function in the world if the parties competing to govern it every 4 years not only offer different policy perspectives, but radically different geopolitical alliances?

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Not having many ties to the US, I don’t know a lot of ordinary Trump voters. But are they really looking at all this and going: “Yep, that’s our guy”? Not the mad online ones. But the many ordinary Americans who just elected him.

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Matthew Thompson @mattuthompson.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

I don’t mean to be overdramatic. But as I studied 20th Century history, I always used to wonder what it must have felt like to stand on the precipice. To watch the tectonic plates of international relations shift underneath you. Franz Ferdinand. The Munich Agreement. Probably a bit like this.

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