Articles
The Political Risks of the Pandemic
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...
Read moreJapan Society: Webinar Series 1: Governments, COVID-19 and the Public Response in the UK and Japan
08.04.20
Governments, COVID-19 and the Public Response in the UK and Japan with Koji Tsuroka and David...
Read moreHow Bad Might the 2020 Economic Shock Become?
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...
Read moreJapan Society Chairman’s Blog – 2
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...
Read moreToward a 2021 Tokyo Olympics
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...
Read moreCovid-19 Virus – How Should Corporations Respond?
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...
Read moreJapan Society Chairman’s Blog – 1
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...
Read moreBrexit Day
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...
Read moreXi Virus
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”....
Read moreMaking Brexit banal
31.01.20 Publication: The Article
The true significance of Brexit day is that it is not significant at all – it may be sad or happy, depending on your point of view, but as a moment it has...
Read moreUS 2020
19.01.20 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun
Every year can be said to be important in the United States of America, for what happens in the world’s most powerful country affects us all. But this...
Read moreBritain Elects the Lesser of Two Evils
14.12.19 Publication: La Stampa
The British public have chosen the lesser of the two evils that were offered to them in the country’s first December general election since 1923. The result...
Read moreThe Paradox of Technological Progress
14.12.19 Publication: Nikkei Business
Something strange is going on in our businesses and in the economy as a whole, all over the advanced, industrialised world, and Japan is at the forefront of...
Read moreWhat Brexit Reveals About the EU
30.10.19 Publication: Project Syndicate
LONDON – In another bizarre twist in the Brexit saga, the United Kingdom’s Parliament has signalled its acceptance of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s...
Read moreThe Implications of low Inflation
04.10.19 Publication: Nikkei Business
We are living in a world of seemingly permanently low inflation. It is quite a contrast, at least for Europe and North America, to the world of the 1970s,...
Read morePopulism and Central Banks
01.09.19 Publication: FACTA
In their ideal world, central bankers want to be thought of as boring. For them, less attention is better than more attention. They prefer to be seen as...
Read morePolitical Crisis in Britain and Italy
31.08.19 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun
In Europe, we are facing two political crises at the same time, both of which stimulate reflections on the nature of constitutions and the current populist...
Read moreFive Star’s Identity at a Crossroads
30.08.19 Publication: La Stampa
What is a populist political party, what is its purpose and how worried should we be? Those questions have been buzzing around in the heads of political...
Read moreWhy Women Will Shape Japan’s Furture
29.07.19 Publication: Nikkei Business
Women will determine the future of Japan’s economy and of many Japanese businesses. That is the proposition I have put forward in a new book which was...
Read moreWhy has China Tolerated Hong Kong’s Challenge?
21.07.19 Publication: Mainichi Shimbun
It was always inevitable, even before Britain handed back control of Hong Kong to China in 1997 after 99 years as a colony, that there would eventually be...
Read moreNext, a British General Election
12.07.19 Publication: La Stampa
We will not know until July 24 whether Britain’s next prime minister will be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, and we may not know until after the summer...
Read moreThe surprising resilience of global economic growth
01.06.19 Publication: Nikkei Business
This was supposed to be the year of the global economic slowdown, led by the United States and Europe. More than 10 years after those regions’ recovery from...
Read moreEurope’s Protest Against the Protestors
28.05.19 Publication: La Stampa
It can be counted as a protest vote against the previous protest vote. That is of course an over-simplification of the European Parliament elections, as any...
Read moreReflections on the Heisei era
02.05.19
Looking back on the three decades of the Heisei era, it is tempting to conclude that although much has changed in Japan's economy and society, very little is...
Read more