Profile avatar
matthewholehouse.bsky.social
British political correspondent at The Economist. Comment journalist of the year, British Journalism Awards 2023.
1,037 posts 29,162 followers 501 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 27 Comments 23

Non-dom policy is a case of how Farage now talks about emigration almost as much as immigration. The two have been entwined on the right for decades. From the email a few weeks ago www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 6 hours ago • 1 comment

“The Renault 5 comes with an optional and detachable tubular basket known as a porte-baguette, or baguette-holder, to store the only accessory motorists in France really need.” economist.com/europe/2025/...

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

“The Renault 5 comes with an optional and detachable tubular basket known as a porte-baguette, or baguette-holder, to store the only accessory motorists in France really need.” economist.com/europe/2025/...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Nigel Farage is doing well in Scotland. And why should that be so hard to imagine? www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

This is, handily, the subject of this week’s nimby watch: capx.co/holyport-can...

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

Why is this happening? And what happened to the old policy of approving precisely this sort of investment in precisely this sort of location?

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Question Time, but also featuring Britain’s tallest policeman, Britain’s strongest firefighter and Britain’s cheekiest window cleaner

submitted 3 days ago • 21 comments

Some personal news (do we still do personal news on BlueSky?): I am the Economist’s new South Asia economics correspondent, and will be based in Mumbai.

submitted 4 days ago • 26 comments

Essential stuff from @matthewholehouse.bsky.social on the “migration theory of everything”. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

I wrote on the appointment of a new MI6 chief, Blaise Metreweli, who joined the service in 1999 as a case officer. Not just the first woman. She's the first chief to have joined well after the end of the cold war. And well regarded in the tech community. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

For all the discourse about the collapse of trust in public institutions, it really is a collapse of trust in professional politicians. Other bits - such as judge-led inquiries (against all experience) - in rosy health.

submitted 6 days ago • 9 comments

Though neither side wants to admit it, there's a striking continuity in how Labour today and the last few Tory governments have allocated money: shielding the NHS with cuts or flat-ish growth elsewhere. (Chart from ‪@theifs.bsky.social‬.) More on this in: notes.archie-hall.com/p/12-though...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Why short-changing London doesn't make sense www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 10 days ago • 5 comments

“The stop-go cycle of capital investment – the new ‘British disease’ – in which short-term instability inhibits investment and drives up infrastructure costs, resulting in fewer, and smaller, new capital projects.” - R Reeves, the Mais Lecture, 2024

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Some Labour backbenchers can see the OBR isn’t a pair of handcuffs, but a sword for getting what they want www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

Fascinating Jeremy Hunt mea culpa on mental health and the 2014 Act Britain’s ex-chancellor on how to fix a welfare crisis that’s partly of his own making economist.com/by-invitatio...

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

Rachel Reeves does for the British debate (perhaps to grand a term) on elder benefits what the election of 2017 did for the debate on funding social care. The message to would-be ministers for another 20 years is clear: too toxic; not worth the candle; leave the nettle ungrasped.

submitted 13 days ago • 7 comments

My cover story this week is on a fascinating global shift: the diminishing preference for baby boys around the world - and the first inklings of a bias towards girls. I'd love for you to read it. www.economist.com/briefing/202...

submitted 14 days ago • 4 comments

“For years British and Irish journalists have treated Mr Adams’s denials as they would a claim that water isn’t wet. The statement is reported, but almost no one believes it.” The great @sjamcbride.bsky.social on the Gerry Adams trial economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

Starmer’s reset with the Scottish government, and Scotland at large, has been businesslike and quietly productive. But the rivalry is intense, the gulf in worldwide large, and political fundamentals are reasserting themselves. www.economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 23 days ago • 3 comments

My take on England’s daftest sport: Should cheese rolling be protected as British heritage? economist.com/britain/2025...

submitted 24 days ago • 10 comments

The Economist is tracking the presidential election in South Korea. See the latest polls and short guides to the main candidates https://econ.trib.al/Qu4qBre

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Starmer speech at Pilkington glass has a slightly surreal air, because he is doing something that his predecessors did only very rarely: a studs-up attack on Farage's character and policy prospectus...

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

mentioned! in the economist

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

Reform's Richard Tice doubles down on the party's fiscally disastrous manifesto in the Telegraph this morning. Now, a full 2/3rds of the—largely unfunded—tax cuts from 2024 are back as party policy, I reckon. Quick 🧵

submitted 38 days ago • 5 comments

Archie from three weeks ago. Critical point: Farage is doubling down on the manifesto in campaign events

submitted 24 days ago • 2 comments

“These will be paid by the company and its investors, and not by customers.” Huge if true

submitted 25 days ago • 6 comments