Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times
Want to avoid Pride month? Bit tired of the, almost literally, in your face, carnival of uninhibited sexual freedom we see on our streets throughout June? Then come to Japan. It’s not that Pride doesn’t happen here at all, just that the Japanese for various cultural and historic reasons, don’t make a song and dance
The women’s football World Cup will kick off in under 50 days’ time in Australia and New Zealand, and England is among the favourites to lift the trophy. But who will get to see it? Broadcast deals have yet to be signed, seemingly because bids from several European countries are unacceptably, some would say insultingly,
‘We need to be careful with the language we use,’ said Gary Lineker as he picked up an award from Amnesty International in Rome for his ‘strong commitment towards immigration and human rights issues’. It was an interesting line to take, given it was Lineker’s intemperate tweeting – particularly his referencing of 1930s Germany in
The SNP has announced that if the next general election results in a hung parliament it will, as power brokers, ‘undo Brexit as far as possible’. Alyn Smyth, the SNP’s EU accession spokesperson, said his party would demand the UK has a close relationship with Brussels in any negotiations with a minority Labour government. There
Ian Fleming once said that a gentleman’s choice of timepiece said as much about him as his Savile Row suit. The latter part of that evaluation seems anachronistic now – after all, who apart from Jacob Rees-Mogg wears Savile Row suits with any regularity these days? But the idea of the watch as indicator of
Devolution has largely failed in Scotland and Wales and some powers need to be returned to Westminster. This is a precis of a controversial article by Lord Frost in the Daily Telegraph last week that continues to provoke outrage. Leading members of the SNP have denounced it. Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has vowed to
Has Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida just survived an assassination attempt? Kishida was evacuated from the site of a stump speech in the fishing port of Sakizaki in Wakayama western Japan after what appeared to be a pipe bomb was thrown in his direction. No one was injured but people fled in terror after the attack, which occurred at around 11:25 AM shortly
As expected, Humza Yousaf has won the SNP leadership election and, barring something extraordinary, will become the next First Minister of Scotland. Yousaf may have been the bookies’ choice but that’s about as far as the favourability extends. Yousaf had a -20 rating with the general public of Scotland and only +11 with his own
Yesterday saw the final televised debate between the three contenders for leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland. Voting will end and the winner will be declared on 27 March. Or will it? Those sick of this increasingly tawdry contest should prepare themselves: it may have a way to go yet. There are
Well, did you enjoy MOTD? Did you miss Gary? Thanks to, let’s just say ‘circumstances’, we were able to take part in a unique television experiment last night. For the first time in its 60-year history MOTD consisted of all action and no talk. No presenters, no expert comment, no fancy graphic preview packages, no
Ed Miliband must be relieved. With Ash Regan’s idea for an ‘independence thermometer’, a giant screen or billboard visually representing progress towards various aspects of independence, his ‘Edstone’ now has competition for the most ridiculous idea ever presented by a UK politician during an election campaign. It is a measure of how absurd the contest
Received wisdom has it that Scotland’s embattled First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is considering her position. ‘She’s finished’ has become a mantra in political circles over the last few days. And not without justification: her absence from a key debate in Holyrood last week did suggest an announcement of some kind might be imminent; perhaps a
Japan is heading for trouble, the country’s prime minster Fumio Kishida has suggested. ‘Our country is on the brink of being unable to maintain the functions of society,’ he said in a speech earlier this week. Japan’s birth rate, the average number of children a woman will have, is too low, and still falling. It’s 1.3, and needs
One initially overlooked aspect of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s ill-fated mini-Budget was the plan to restore VAT-free shopping for tourists. The scheme, which allowed non-EU visitors to claim back 20 per cent on their purchases, was scrapped in 2020 by then chancellor Rishi Sunak but looked set for a comeback. This was excellent news
Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida is in London today to meet Rishi Sunak and sign an historic defence agreement which will allow the countries to deploy forces on each other’s soil. The two will also toast the new UK-Japan digital partnership which aims to ‘strengthen cooperation across cyber resilience, online safety and semiconductors’ and discuss
Having just squandered a quarter of a million pounds on her fruitless Supreme Court independence challenge, Nicola Sturgeon’s government could be headed back to Little George Street sooner than they might have expected. If the UK government deems the hugely controversial Gender Recognition Reform Bill unlawful, a Section 35 order blocking the legislation from going
It is a measure of the unexpected success of the Qatar World Cup that it could be hailed as the best, by Fifa President Gianni Infantino, and the boast was not entirely laughable. This World Cup had its share of longueurs but had plenty of excitement and ended on such a high note that conspiracists
With the prospect of Messi closing out his glorious career with the ultimate prize it’s likely most neutral fans will be rooting for Argentina in today’s World Cup final. The only place where that might not be true – apart from Brazil – is England, where there may even be an unlikely revival of the
I hope that the Argentinian national team (also known as Lionel Messi) will win its third (or first?) World Cup on Sunday. But even if it doesn’t, the team’s legendary number ten has surely achieved that rare and precious accolade – earned by Pele in 1970 and Maradona in 1986 – of so dominating a
Spain crashed out of the World Cup on penalties last night, despite dominating possession against Morocco for two solid hours. Pretty much everyone bar Spaniards will be delighted by this giant-killing by Morocco, who are just the fourth African team to reach the quarter-finals in football history. But their penalty success is nothing to celebrate.
