Articles

03.06.20 Publication: La Stampa

To outsiders, it must look like a farce. While the British economy is slumping, the country is moving into huge debt, and it has lost more than 37,000 lives...

29.05.20

There can be no doubt that the pandemic and associated lockdown has at times been a test for our imaginations, although the idea of taking a nearly 60-mile...

28.05.20

Work, During and After the Pandemic with Lynda...

24.05.20 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

Last December, the government of my country, the UK, looked supremely powerful and confident. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative Party had just...

22.05.20

Vladimir Lenin, the former exile in London whom your chairman has at times been accused of resembling, was a fine provider of useful quotations. One of the...

21.05.20

The Effect of the Pandemic on Diplomatic and Commercial Relations with China with Kerry Brown and Akio...

15.05.20

One enjoyable memory from my time when posted to Tokyo is of a weekend visit in what I think must have been 1985 to Ito-shi, out on the Izu peninsula, for the...

12.05.20

What We Know Now: Medical Science and the Response to COVID-19 with Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa and Dr. Peter...

08.05.20

Whenever I visit a city abroad, whether for work or for pleasure, I look out for smaller, less well-known museums and galleries to drop into. I think this...

07.05.20

International Responsibilities and the Pandemic with Mark Malloch-Brown and Mami...

05.05.20

The Political Repercussions of the Pandemic with Tsutomu Ishiai and John...

01.05.20

This week took my thoughts back five centuries but also just five months. Last November I participated in a conference about “Japan’s future and role in...

28.04.20

The Political Economy of the Pandemic with Robert Feldman and Robert...

24.04.20

In most years, given the way England is, we pay remarkably little attention to St George’s Day, despite knowing him as our patron saint and using his flag...

17.04.20

One of the surprising but also cheering aspects of this strange and difficult period has been how readily we can all be connected with one another, despite...

12.04.20 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun

In the middle of a storm, it makes no sense to try to list what damage is going to be done as it rages onwards. We need to concentrate on staying dry and...

08.04.20

Governments, COVID-19 and the Public Response in the UK and Japan with Koji Tsuroka and David...

03.04.20 Publication: La Stampa

Children often have better instincts than us supposedly experienced adults. In early March, when I was giving a talk to a group of teenage pupils at a school...

01.04.20 Publication: Japan Society of the UK

In early March, in what now feels like a distant memory, I gave a talk to sixth-formers at a state school in the English countryside, as part of the excellent...

24.03.20 Publication: Project Syndicate

With the global COVID-19 crisis quickly escalating, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has had to accept a hard truth, rightly taking the initiative...

16.03.20 Publication: Nikkei Business

It is the external economic and business shock that futurists have often warned about, but most of us never expected to actually happen: a new virus causing a...

01.03.20 Publication: Japan Society of the UK

This is the first of what will be a regular “Chairman’s Blog” for Japan Society members and supporters. I originally thought I would start the blog to...

03.02.20 Publication: La Stampa

Welcome to the great Brexit anti-climax. It was postponed twice last year, Britain went into a kind of political nervous breakdown over it, then held a...

01.02.20 Publication: La Stampa

Just over two years ago my former magazine, The Economist, put President Xi Jinping on its cover and described him as “The world’s most powerful man”....