Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed is a writer who takes readers beneath the surface of the news cycle and into the deeper trends shaping the world. Constantly questioning the latest consensus and willing to take stances that don't fit neatly into either left or right, his columns are rarely predictable and always authoritative. Over the last twelve months, he has offered nuanced takes on everything from Brexit to African politics and the Ukraine war to parental love.

One reader of the Sunday Times wrote: “I used to love the Sunday (quality) papers, because they contained fascinating thought pieces and reflections on the past week’s events. This was in the 80s and 90s. Then I got pretty jaundiced about them, as they seemed to descend into political back-stabbing and merely reporting the day’s news, with little reflection or thought as to the wider implications. Matthew Syed is emphatically bringing my Sunday mornings back to life and my synapses back into stimulation.”

In one column, Syed wrote on his great love of football, providing an almost instant reflection on England's agonising defeat in the quarter-finals of the World Cup to France. The match finished at 9pm on Saturday night and copy was filed within 45 mins for the digital edition, a column which also adorned the pages of the next day's Sunday Times.