Table for Two

In the UK, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has been on the rampage against low quality school dinners for some time. He has helped to spearhead a renaissance in dietary awareness, and demonstrated that healthy meals can be both tasty and cost-effective.
[Oliver's campaign website can be viewed here]

Now, a Japanese initiative, 'Table For Two', also hopes to promote healthy eating, whilst at the same time helping to address the issue of hunger in the developing world.

Founded by Japanese members of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader (YGL) programme, including two members of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ),'Table For Two' saw its first day today in the Tokyo dining halls of Japanese corporate monolith, Itochu. The food is not served in the normal 'set-lunch' style common to Japanese lunchtime eating, but is laid out in buffet-bar cafeteria format, with each option clearly labeled for calorie and vitamin content. The food is all made with fresh ingredients, and it is hoped that by both indicating the contents clearly and increasing options, consumers will be able to make healthier individual choices.

However, this is not the genius of the project. The 'Table For Two' mission is to "bring balance and health to the world where there is currently imbalance and suffering." From every meal bought, 20 Cents is 'matched' by participating companies, which is then used to provide free school lunches and 'soup kitchens' in the developing world, administered under the auspices of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). So, within the price of a meal is a donation to combat hunger in the developing world. You are not merely eating for yourself, but for two!

This initiative is propelled by young, motivated individuals from the political and business worlds. One thing unites them all: They are committed to meeting global challenges with innovative ideas. They are not about to sit back and absorb the status quo. While the Government postures, members of the opposition, such as Motohisa Furukawa and Keiichiro Asao, are joining forces with up-and-coming members of the corporate world and searching for concrete solutions to the world's problems.

R J F Villar

Opposition set to boycott Upper House

As a follow-up to my earlier article about the current opposition boycott of Supplementary Budget discussions (Opposition Boycott, 02/02/07), it appears that next week's Upper House budget debates will also be a lonely ruling-party affair. According to today's Asahi Shimbun (04/02/07, pg.2), the People's New Party (PNP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) are all intending to be absent from the Upper House debates as a protest against Minister Yanagisawa's description of women as "baby-making machines" on the 27th January. The Japan Communist Party (JCP) has indicated they will be attending, but in a non-vocal capacity only.

It was thought that the absence may have been, in part, a device to shore up support prior to this weekend's elections. Some sources indicated that debate would resume next week after today's gubernatorial elections in Aichi Prefecture and the vote for the mayor of Kita-Kyushu City.

By keeping the pressure on the Government, the opposition evidently believes that support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will thin-out even more than is already the case. It is hoped that the outdated comments by Yanagisawa, and Prime Minster Abe Shinzo's failure to punish them, will hand the advantage to the opposition in the run-up to both the Local elections in the spring and this summer's Upper House ballot.

However, this is a tactic that could easily backfire. By their absence, opposition parties are unable to scrutinize LDP budget plans - 'opposition' becomes very theoretical when there is no-one there to 'oppose' - and the electorate may just feel that this is a greater dereliction of duty than Yanagisawa's misguided remarks. Can members of the DPJ really expect to be seen as serious Government-potential when they forgo the democratic debate they have been elected for?

Opposition tactics...

Below are examples of tactics being used by two very different opposition parties:

The first is the regular video blog, 'Webcameron', by David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK. Although initially skeptical, a position taken by the majority of those interested in British politics, I believe it has since turned out to be a very effective medium for communication of Cameron's basic ideas. He comes across as intelligent, reasonable, committed and, most important of all, electable!

The latest effort by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), floating across the airwaves from the end of December '06, wins 10/10 for originality, although is perhaps influenced more by Caribbean pirates than Japanese politics. Whether it scores as highly for effect has yet to be seen. However, even if the advertisement does not exactly cast party leader, Ozawa Ichiro, as an archetypal patrician, it at the very least helps to remind the electorate that the DPJ still exists!

Both the DPJ in Japan and the Conservative Party in the UK are attempting to reinvent themselves in the eyes of the electorate. Cameron is giving the Tories a softer, more social democratic edge, whilst Ozawa seems (at least in terms of rhetoric) to be moving away from the 'youthful reformism' of the DPJ's early years and plotting out a more mature set of policies.

Ozawa has repeatedly talked about bringing politics home to the people - he has claimed to be committed to battling the widening cleavages between rich and poor in Japanese society - and this is doubtlessly an attempt at mass-appeal. But are the Japanese people really persuaded more by slogans and computer-generated pirate ships than a page of solid policies? Ozawa and his policy-wonks obviously think so. And he could just be right.

R J F Villar

Opposition Boycott

Opposition parties are clamouring for the resignation of Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare, Hokuo Yanagisawa, in response to his outrageous comment on the 27th January claiming that women were "baby-making machines" ("kodomo o umu kikai").

For the last couple of days opposition Dietmembers have been noticeably absent from Supplementary Budget debates, which were due to begin earlier this week. Led by the vocal attacks of female Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader, Fukushima Mizuho, all main opposition parties - SDP, Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Japan Communist Party (JCP) and People's New Party (PNP) - are refusing to take part in debates, be they budgetary or otherwise, until Yanagisawa steps down from his post.

Thursday was the first time in seven years that a united opposition had boycotted a budget debate in normal Diet session, since a protest in 2000 concerning the number of House of Representatives seats elected through Proportional Representation. In the absence of any opposition, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) continued business without oversight, following a statement by Yanagisawa earlier that day indicating he was not considering giving up his job.

Although Yanagisawa's comments were indeed deplorable, the question remains: Should elected MPs be allowed to boycott important Diet debates? By their absence, the opposition parties are no longer in a position to hold the LDP to account, and by trying to force Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's hand, they are pursuing a line which is far from democratic.

6000 miles away, the current British Home Secretary, John Reid, has also been under extreme pressure to stand down from his position. Since the middle of January, Reid has been hit by a flurry of scandal: On January 14th, a senior Home Office civil servant was reprimanded for the failure to keep tabs on British citizens who had offended abroad; prison overcrowding was revealed to be endemic by the end of January; and on the 27th an English newspaper, The News of the World, revealed that 322 convicted sex offenders were 'missing' in the UK. The Conservative and Liberal Democrats have both indicated they think Reid should resign, but like Yanagisawa, the Minister himself has given all the signs that he intends to continue in his current position.

Yet, there are striking differences in the two affairs. The media and political opposition in the UK are calling for John Reid's resignation not for a mistaken comment, but for clear failures in his department. He has, many say, failed in a job he was chosen to do. Yanagisawa, on the other hand, is not being accused of malpractice or a governmental mistake as Minister for Health, Labour and Welfare. If he was, many in the opposition would be in a very precarious position themselves.

Kiyomi Tsujimoto (SDP), one of the loudest critics of Yanagisawa, was forced to resign in 2002 and was given a suspended jail sentence for misappropriating funds. Naoto Kan, one of the DPJ's top-dogs, resigned his leadership of the party in 2004 when it was revealed he had not paid pension-contributions.

It is difficult to accuse Yanagisawa of failing to do his job, especially when Japan's media seems reluctant to probe governance too deeply. However, it could also be asked whether a minister charged with responsibility for Japan's welfare policies should be allowed to get away with describing women as "baby-making machines". Either way, it seems the actions of the opposition will only make things worse. If Abe were to ask Yanagisawa to go, he would lose face within his party and set a dangerous precedent. If he does not, as seems likely, the opposition will have lost a key opportunity to question the LDP's budget plans - one reason, after all, they were elected to the Diet. DPJ leader Ozawa Ichiro has recently stated that "politics is about people's lives" ("seiji to wa seikatsu de aru"). If this is to be more than empty spin, sorting out taxes would be a good place to start.

On Thursday and Friday, the House of Representatives was eerily quiet. It seems most members of the opposition had taken the opportunity for an early, and elongated, weekend...

R J F Villar

The Snooze Police

The Visitors' Box in the House of Representatives is a strange place. Merely entering the section reserved for observers, high above the main house, has a bizarre soporific effect. Diplomats karalled-off on the far right seem engaged, Japanese assistants slithering a stream of translation into their ears. The press box below is always alive; reporters and paparazzi rush around snapping and flashing their cameras with frenetic activity. Yet, the Visitors' Box is asleep. A group of aged trade union officials snore gently to one side; and a ladies'-day-out in the corner let the words of honorific Japanese float them off to sleep. And amidst it all are the Sleep-Nazis - a special detachment of police - who mercilessly shake visitor after visitor from their dreams. They love it.

However, the real question is not why these people fall asleep, but why the main floor of the House of Representatives is so tediously dull. In the House, 'debate' seems to be a distinctly foreign word.

Every day I try to tune into a programme by BBC Radio 4, called Today in Parliament, which can be listened to for free on the Internet. Broadcast on weekday evenings, it briefly runs through the day's debates in the British Houses of Parliament, taking especial pleasure in covering the numerous vicious debates that crop-up on a daily basis. The Government directly faces the Opposition across the floor of the House of Commons, and there is often genuine hate as Labour attacks the Conservatives, or a Scottish Nationalist Party MP insults the Prime Minister. It is exciting, theatrical and adversarial; a far cry from the parliamentary proceedings of the Japanese Diet.

Japan may have a parliamentary-style democracy, but it is a long way from the British adversarial model. Take, for example, the recent daihyo shitsumon - Leaders' Questions - put to Prime Minister Abe Shinzo by the top-dogs in the opposition at the end of January. Until the Government Minister for Health Welfare and Labour put his foot in it and declared women were "baby-making machines" ("kodomo o umu kikai"), events took their normal course: it was monologue after unrelated monologue. The two solidly left-wing parties, the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) are the only parties that attempt to make their speeches clear, to the point and assertive. The questions put by Kiyomi Tsujimoto on behalf of the SDP directly attacked the Government and communicated with her audience. They were not merely scripted and read in a monotone. Why, I often ask myself, do the more legitimate mainstream parties not go for a bit more charisma?

"The Japanese do not like confrontation." Always comes the reply. It is true that the vast majority of Japanese Prime Ministers have had fairly faceless tenures at the top. Most Western students who first come to the subject of Japanese politics struggle to name more than a handful. However, to argue that Japanese politics has been confrontation-free is frankly wrong. Think back to the massive clashes over the Anpo treaty in 1960, or later on, the marches against the construction of Narita Airport in Tokyo. And a contemporary example of showmanship, charisma and conflict in politics? Koizumi Junichiro. Confrontation won him an election.

Let's have more Lionhearts in the chamber.

R J F Villar

Motohisa Furukawa and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)

I am currently working on the staff of young, up-and-coming Dietmember, Motohisa Furukawa (see picture left). Mr. Furukawa holds the support of well over 50% of the population of his Aichi Prefecture constituency, a rare feat in an electoral district which works on the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. In the coming months I will be highlighting some of the most interesting aspects of Japanese politics on both national and local levels, based around Mr. Furukawa's offices in Aichi and Tokyo.

Motohisa Furukawa's party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), is Japan’s second largest party and main opposition party. It is generally viewed as social liberal in orientation. Formed on April 27th 1998, the DPJ grew from a merger of four small anti-LDP parties to become a major player in Japanese politics, gaining significant support in the 2000 and 2001 Diet elections. In 2001 the DPJ supported Japan’s first foreign-born Dietmember, Marutei Tsurunen (originally Martti Turunen of Finland).

In 2003 the DPJ merged with the small, centre-right Liberal Party led by Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the DPJ from April 2006 following the resignation of Seiji Maehara. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party of Japan sits with the Independents’ Club (Mushozoku kurabu), a group of democrats with a largely liberal centrist agenda. In the House of Councillors, the DPJ sits with a group known as ‘New Breeze’ (Shin-Ryokufukai).

R J F Villar

Welcome to 'politics on the other side'

Japanese politics and the amorphous Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are largely synonymous: When you think of one, you think of the other. A passing nod is given to opposition parties, but no-one really expects there to be a long-term change of Government. For all but a brief slip in the 1990s, the LDP have reigned supreme for the lifetime of the average student of Japanese politics, and, the argument usually goes, they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

However, to focus on the party-in-power is to miss the excitement, potential and future of Japanese politics. While LDP scandal and backhanders may be the same old story of vested-interests politics, in the background the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is working hard and picking up momentum. While Prime Minister Abe Shinzo flails around searching for headline-grabbing big-picture policies to build what he has touted as his ideal "Beautiful Country" ("utsukushii kuni"), Ozawa Ichiro is focusing the DPJ on working for the needs of the Japanese people.

In the run-up to the Upper House elections this summer, support for the LDP is rapidly declining, and the DPJ is going from strength to strength. Never has there been such a solid credible opposition to the LDP. Over the next few months, I will be recording the rise of the DPJ, testing the political waters in the March local elections and commenting on opposition politics in Japan.

These are my views, based on my observations of elections and the day-today strategies of the Democratic Party of Japan. They are not the official views of any party or politician.

R J F Villar