Articles

21.03.21 Publication: Mainichi

My country, Britain, faces a self-imposed difficulty. It chose, in a referendum in 2016, to leave the 28-country block of the European Union, of which it had...

11.03.21 Publication: La Stampa

If you feel strongly about the interview given by Britain’s Prince Harry and his American wife Meghan Markle to Oprah Winfrey on CBS, then just remember...

10.03.21 Publication: Nikkei Business

Anyone in business will know that it is very rare to find ratios of risk to likely return that are highly favourable and carry a high degree of certainty. Any...

07.03.21

“You are old, Father William, the young man said, and your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you think, at your...

26.02.21

It was one of those events for which I suspect all of us can remember what we were doing or where we were when we heard the news – or, for those in Japan,...

11.02.21

The "Basic Policy" for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is as clear as it is uplifting. “When people look back on the Tokyo 2020 Games...

31.01.21 Publication: Mainichi

Four years ago it was said, probably accurately, that Hillary Clinton may have been the only Democratic Party candidate that Donald Trump stood a chance of...

17.01.21

It is mid-January and the temple bells have long since fallen silent, but it still feels appropriate to say Shinnen Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu to you all,...

09.01.21 Publication: La Stampa

America’s attempted revolution has failed. Donald Trump has failed. His opponents now command a majority in both houses of the US Congress. Criminal...

06.12.20 Publication: Montrose Journal

Many western governments have evaded awkward comparisons with countries that have managed the virus better by dismissing them as too different to learn...

27.11.20

~Women in Japan are sometimes regarded as having a lower social status than men. They also face limited professional opportunities. Yet a compelling new book...

08.11.20

So how was it for you? No prizes for guessing to what I am referring. Obviously, it was pretty good in the end for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, less so for...

08.11.20 Publication: AVANTI

After all the arguments about Russian interference in 2016, the US presidential and congressional elections of 2020 feel like a rather majestic democratic...

07.11.20 Publication: Mainichi

Throughout Donald Trump’s occupancy of the White House since January 2017 I have had in my mind comparisons with the previous billionaire, narcissistic...

06.11.20 Publication: La Stampa

The outcome of America’s elections brings to mind a line from two famous American entertainers, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy: “Another fine mess you’ve...

05.11.20 Publication: Financial Times

“The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times”. By Lionel Barber. W.H. Allen, 460pp There aren’t really any other jobs like it....

02.11.20

“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone…”. It feels a bit early to quote a Christmas carol, with...

06.10.20 Publication: Project Syndicate

DUBLIN – Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, has arrived with a suite of ambitious policy ideas, including plans to digitize government services...

02.10.20

Every generation, as they get older, sees things happening among younger people that allows them to conclude that society must have gone mad. For me, in recent...

01.10.20 Publication: AVANTI

The American election always matters to the outside world, for whatever anyone may claim about the decline of US power or the demise of US hegemony, the...

25.09.20

I cannot pretend that these are not turbulent times, when an American president refuses to confirm that there will be a peaceful transfer of power after the US...

20.09.20 Publication: AVANTI

The American election always matters to the outside world, for whatever anyone may claim about the decline of US power or the demise of US hegemony, the...

19.09.20 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

Historians are divided by one quite fundamental debate. One school, who believe in what is often known as “the great man theory of history” holds that...

18.09.20

I have to begin with a confession. In the blog that I wrote on August 31st, perhaps still feeling overly relaxed thanks to the summer, I said something foolish...