Philip Patrick

Japan is to have a female prime minister. Well, probably. Sanae Takaichi, the 64-year-old conservative veteran, has at the third attempt won the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) – which brings with it the bonus of being prime minister. Or at least it usually does. The LDP are currently in a coalition government, so Takaichi’s appointment will need to wait a couple of weeks to be confirmed at an extraordinary session in the diet (the national legislature). You might think the Japanese, feminists especially, would make something of having their first female prime minister, but the news has elicited not much more than a shrug here. There has been little fanfare and still less rejoicing.

Here we go again. In what appears now to be an annual event, the Japanese prime minister has resigned. In a press conference on Sunday evening, Shigeru Ishiba, who had only been in the job since last October, explained that he was leaving because his continuation in post would prove divisive for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It is time, he said, for the ‘next generation’ to take over.  Ishiba had lost his party’s majority in both lower and upper house elections (he headed a minority coalition government) and is now irredeemably tainted by failure. He has no faction or support group to stand up for him and couldn’t have credibly presented himself as the man to either unite and rebuild his declining party or make any headway in solving Japan’s myriad, complex problems.

When someone one day writes a true history of Scotland during the baleful tenure of Nicola Sturgeon and reflects on what brought about her downfall as first minister, ‘Isla’ Bryson might be worth a footnote but J.K. Rowling surely merits a chapter. No one has managed to articulate the opposition case to Sturgeon with the verve, intelligence and penetrating wit of the Harry Potter author.   Rowling’s review of Frankly, Sturgeon’s recently published memoir, is in many ways as brilliant as her other mainly tweeted thrusts. It is incisive and damming, outclassing her adversary and doing so with courage humour and originality.

Relief. That was the overriding emotion in the Japanese financial markets and society at large today when, after months of speculation and discord, a trade deal was finally struck between President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s trade representative Ryosei Akazawa. The Japanese envoy, who has made eight trips to Washington in pursuit of an agreement, finally pulled it off just a week before the 1 August deadline (after which a hefty 25 per cent levy would have been imposed on all Japanese goods to the US). With the deal, that will be reduced to a probably manageable and reciprocal 15 per cent. Included in the package was an agreement that Japan would invest $550 billion in the US (details to be announced).

Tenzin Gyatso, otherwise known as His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, will celebrate his 90th birthday on Sunday. Despite once predicting he would live to 110, the Dalai Lama has perhaps prudently decided that the time is right to discuss his succession. He will host a conference of Lamas and luminaries (including the actor Richard Gere) to discuss the question. China, which annexed Tibet in 1959, causing the then young holy man to flee to India, will be following the preemptive Buddhist conclave with great interest. Whoever the next Dalai lama is will have large sandals to fill and is unlikely to be as charismatic or affable Traditionally, a Dalai Lama is found according to an ancient system of mystical rites, rather than chosen.

Nissan has announced that hundreds of jobs will be cut at its Sunderland plant. The Japanese auto-maker said the lay-offs would be in the form of ‘voluntary redundancies'. The move is part of the beleaguered corporate behemoth's plan to reduce its global workforce by 15 per cent following several disastrous years, not least because of slow demand for its fleet of electric cars. Some sympathy is due perhaps, at least for Nissan in the UK While the cuts only affect four per cent of the plant's 6,000 workers, the question now is whether this is just the start. So serious is the state of Nissan’s finances – it announced losses of $4.5 billion (£3.3 billion) in 2024, with this year not expected to be any better – that it would be foolish to assume this is where it will end.