Japan's politics is entering a messy new era
T HE DEBUT on TikTok by the Liberal Democratic Party ( LDP ), Japan's long-time ruling party, lacked what young people might call 'rizz'. Released last month, the 44-second video features Ishiba Shigeru, the 68-year-old prime minister, in a dark suit promising to lower petrol prices, while glancing down at paper notes. Prepare to be astounded: it was not a success.
His vision for the country remains thankfully unrealised
The country's elites won't like it
The generals would be mad to try
The trial, with a plot stranger than detective fiction, has gripped the country
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The Guardian
13 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Culture secretary urged by Lib Dems to act over ‘disgraceful treatment' of Crystal Palace
A group of Liberal Democrat MPs from south London has written to the culture secretary urging her to intervene over Crystal Palace's demotion from the Europa League, as the club's most influential supporters' group plans to take its protest to Uefa's headquarters in Switzerland. European football's governing body said last week the FA Cup winners had breached its multi-club ownership rules and would play in the Conference League. Palace are expected to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport, and hundreds of supporters marched to Selhurst Park on Tuesday night to voice anger at Uefa's decision. A letter was sent to Lisa Nandy on Wednesday by seven Lib Dem MPs including Bobby Dean, whose Carshalton and Wallington constituency contains many Palace supporters, and the leader, Sir Ed Davey, expressing deep concern over Palace's 'disgraceful treatment'. It requested that the secretary of state for culture, media and sport ensure 'the decision-making process is reviewed for transparency and fairness' and 'the club is given a fair opportunity to appeal or respond to any allegations'. The letter says: 'As you may be aware, other clubs seem to go through much more protracted disputes with less severe outcomes. Many believe that this process has been opaque and disproportionately punitive. We hope you will take this matter seriously and act to uphold the principles of fairness, accountability, and integrity in sport.' Dean told the Guardian: 'This is heartbreaking for fans. In what should be an unblemished year of celebration for the club, officials totally disconnected from the side's success on the pitch have issued a highly unusual and severe punishment that raises serious questions about fairness in the governance of English football. We are urging the government to back our appeal to Uefa for a thorough review of this decision. Fans must be at the centre of the game, not treated as an afterthought.' Clubs with the same owner are barred from competing in the same Uefa competition if an individual or ownership group is considered to have a decisive influence over more than one of those teams. Uefa deemed that a move by Palace's biggest shareholder, John Textor, whose company Eagle Football Holdings also owns Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League, to sell his stake to the New York Jets owner, Woody Johnson, had come too late despite completion of the deal being imminent. Tuesday's march was led by the Holmesdale Fanatics, who took aim at Uefa with a banner that described it as 'morally bankrupt'. They have promised to organise another protest at Uefa's headquarters in Nyon in the coming days. 'We want to go there and put enough pressure on them and make it enough of the public issue that we can affect the decision,' said Mickey Grafton. 'In short, the next step is to go to Switzerland. We need to get a delegation out there. We won't say what we've got planned now.' Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Any appeal to Cas is likely to be fast-tracked given that the draw for the Conference League playoff round is on 4 August, and Palace are due to play the first leg three weeks later.
New Statesman
14 minutes ago
- New Statesman
What Britain owes Afghanistan
AFGHANISTAN - JULY 8: British Royal Marines of 45 Commando stop an Afghan tractor during an eagle vehicle check point (VCP) operation as part of the ongoing Operation Buzzard July 8, 2002 in southeastern Afghanistan. During VCPs, small groups of marines are dropped quickly by helicopters to search random vehicles on dirt roads and trails near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to deny al Qaeda and Taliban fighters freedom of movement across the region. (Photo by) In 1999 Nooralhaq Nasimi, my father, fled Taliban-held Afghanistan for Britain. The journey, at one point, included spending 12 hours inside a refrigerated lorry. He was unable to speak a word of English. Building a new life had its difficulties, both administrative and personal, but my father did it. Today, nearly three decades later, I work alongside him running the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association (ACAA), a London-based charity dedicated to helping refugees integrate. The ACAA now has branches across the country. My father gained a law degree. He learned English. He founded a charity. He received an honorary doctorate and an MBE. His work – and mine – attempts to build bridges between Britain and Afghanistan, two nations linked by history and tragedy for the best part of two centuries. We have also attempted to build relationships between refugees from around the world and their host nation. Perhaps – especially in recent years – there has never been a harder time to do this in Britain's history. The news this afternoon that the previous government set up a secret relocation scheme, the Afghan Response Route (ARR), involving 20,000 people at a cost in the order of £2bn after a 2023 data breach in the Ministry of Defence has caused a political sensation. The data leak put the lives of thousands of Afghans. Between 2001 and 2021 over 150,000 UK Armed Forces personnel served in Afghanistan. 457 were killed. 2188 were injured. Thousands of Afghans worked with them as interpreters and in other capacities. Those left behind after Western forces left Afghanistan in 2021 feared for their lives as the Taliban took control of the country. In February 2023, the Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, said: 'The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a dark chapter in UK military history. For the Afghans who cooperated with the UK, and the British troops who served in the country, the nightmare is far from over. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe 'They are at risk of harm as a direct result of assisting the UK mission. We can't change the events that unfolded in August 2021, but we owe it to those Afghans, who placed their lives in danger to help us, to get them and their families to safety.' Ellwood's words remain salient. The two year cover-up by the British government of the ARR does nothing to change these facts. Britain owed these men a safe home, like the home my father found. Darius Nasimi is the founder of Afghanistan Government in Exile (AGiE). [Further reading: The Tories are responsible for the Afghan fiasco] Related
Glasgow Times
43 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
'Glasgow must be given the same resources as English city regions'
City regions across these islands – and indeed across our planet – are vital drivers of growth and addressing poverty and inequalities. Glasgow is no exception. In a relatively short space of time, and during some very difficult years, our own City Region has been delivering exactly the types of benefits that people want to see. The City Deal, for example, is transforming not just the look and feel of communities with new bridges and new neighbourhoods but also our very economy. We're right up there with Europe's best for science and technology while creating more employment opportunities for ordinary citizens. Meanwhile, the partnerships between the eight member councils, businesses, and academia are helping ensure Glasgow actually outperforms those UK city regions we're regularly compared to. For example, the total value of what our economy produces here in Metropolitan Glasgow has recently been higher than either the West Midlands or Greater Manchester. At the same time, levels of child poverty and unemployment are lower. We're clearly doing a lot of things right. As chair of the cross-party Glasgow City Region Cabinet, I've always been clear that to take our ambitions to the next level we need more powers and more resources. And that has to come from both the Scottish and UK Governments. So, I was obviously delighted when, at our annual State of the City Economy Conference in December, Scottish and UK ministers pledged to work together with us to drive those ambitions forward. However, over the past month, many of us within these partnerships have become increasingly disappointed with what's emerging from the UK Government. I'll be the first to say that my party colleagues at Holyrood really do have to get a move on delivering on their promises to better empower Glasgow. But what's emerging from Westminster looks increasingly like a rollback. And if that's the case, Glasgow and our fellow City Region authorities will start to fall behind our peers south of the border. The UK Government's Spending Review made clear the gulf in how Scottish and English city regions are resourced. Manchester, West Yorkshire, West Midlands, and several others are provided with large integrated settlements with which they can make their own investment decisions. Yet Glasgow is reduced to administering UK Government programmes. That makes it extremely difficult to grow our economy in the ways we know we can – and must. Now, Scotland's Secretary of State, Ian Murray, and his colleague, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones MP, both insist that the UK Government has no role in delivering for Glasgow the type of devolution deal awarded for our English City Region comparators. It is certainly the case that the vast majority of the powers we seek are in the gift of the Scottish Government. However, devolving powers without the accompanying funding to match would be almost meaningless. The Glasgow City Region partners are clear that we require integrated funding deals, equivalent to those being delivered to our English peers. Those deals have not generated the all-important Barnett consequentials, meaning no equivalent funding has ever been provided to the Scottish Government. It's clear then that the funding for a devolution deal for the Glasgow City Region remains the responsibility of the UK Government. Crucially, the Core Cities Group, which represents the 12 biggest cities outside London and which Glasgow is part of, has collectively called on the UK Government to provide parity of funding support for the city regions in the devolved nations. And it too believes that the Spending Review was a missed opportunity to begin to address the inequities between English city regions and Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast. If the UK Government wants to properly address the very poor growth figures undermining its own economic mission, then it needs to reconsider how it funds city regions in the devolved nations. The Secretary of State for Scotland has asked that I join him in writing to the First Minister in demanding the Scottish Government gives the Glasgow City Region the powers it's been asking for. I'm happy to do that. But a joint letter also needs to go to the UK Prime Minister and Chancellor demanding parity with our English peers. Glasgow needs both of our governments to step up to devolution.
