Philip Patrick

What J.K. Rowling misses about Sturgeon’s memoir 

16 August 2025 12:35 am

When someone one day writes a true history of Scotland during the baleful tenure of Nicola Sturgeon and reflects on…

What Marcus Rashford gets right – and wrong – about United

14 August 2025 1:34 am

Marcus Rashford, formerly of Manchester United, now of Barcelona, has opened up about his time at Old Trafford in a podcast interview…

Could Britain learn from Japan’s ‘vigilante’ groups?

9 August 2025 1:35 am

A uniformed group of volunteers is planning to patrol the mean streets of Bournemouth in response to a recent surge…

Women’s football is better without the politics

28 July 2025 5:47 pm

England did two remarkable things in Basel last night: winning an international title overseas and doing it by that most…

The US trade deal may come too late for Japan’s prime minister

23 July 2025 10:32 pm

Relief. That was the overriding emotion in the Japanese financial markets and society at large today when, after months of…

Japan’s prime minister is on borrowed time

21 July 2025 6:33 pm

‘It is a difficult situation and we have to take it very humbly and seriously’. This was the typically understated…

Could Japan soon be governed by chatbots?

19 July 2025 9:00 am

Tokyo Could Japan be the world’s first -algocracy – government by algorithm? The concept has been flirted with elsewhere: in…

Japan is running out of time to save itself from Trump’s tariffs

8 July 2025 8:58 pm

‘This is a serious situation for Japan’. That was the verdict of the business editor on NHK’s morning news programme…

In defence of Wimbledon’s AI line judge

7 July 2025 10:04 pm

Does anything work in Broken Britain? You’d be forgiven for wondering when even during our most prestigious sporting tournaments the…

Nissan’s future looks bleak

2 July 2025 3:38 pm

Nissan has announced that hundreds of jobs will be cut at its Sunderland plant. The Japanese auto-maker said the lay-offs…

Where have all the Japanese tourists gone?

31 May 2025 4:00 pm

Is the Japanese tourist, for so long in good numbers a welcome and reliable fixture at our most famous tourist…

Why the Japanese don’t believe Fukushima is safe

30 May 2025 4:00 pm

Soil samples from Fukushima, the prefecture where Japan’s Dai-Ichi Nuclear reactor exploded in 2011 sending plumes of radioactive material into…

Great football writers are different

24 May 2025 3:00 pm

Brian Glanville, who died this week at the age of 93, was a unique voice in the crowded and often hysterical field of football…

What the Europa League losers’ final reveals about English football

20 May 2025 3:35 pm

Two of world football’s biggest but worst performing clubs Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur face off in Bilbao on Wednesday in the…

‘It is sad that we are sometimes seen as just killers’: an interview with Japan’s last ninja

3 May 2025 9:00 am

Getting an interview with Jinichi Kawakami, the man known in Japan as ‘the Last Ninja’, was no easy task –…

Trump’s tariff pause has given Japan time to plan its next move

10 April 2025 9:05 pm

Asian markets are rebounding after President Trump announced a 90-day ‘pause’ in the implementation of the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs that…

Trump is bending Japan to his will

8 April 2025 12:28 am

‘National crisis’ was how Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba described the fallout from President Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs in a…

They think it’s all over for President Yoon – it is now

4 April 2025 11:08 pm

Yoon Suk Yeol, elected South Korea’s president in 2022, has been removed from office. The Constitutional Court in Seoul has…

Japan has been stunned by the Trump tariffs

3 April 2025 10:41 pm

Virtually the whole world is waking up to the reality, not threat now, of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but…

Does Japan want its own nuclear weapons?

22 March 2025 5:00 pm

Japan is planning to strengthen its ‘counterstrike capabilities’ by deploying long-range missiles on the southern island of Kyushu. The missiles…

Is Trump going to rip up the US security alliance with Japan?

9 March 2025 10:23 pm

Another day, another Trumpian bombshell, this one aimed at the country he says he loves: Japan. Trump told reporters this…

Japan and Britain are too weak to help each other

7 March 2025 6:46 pm

Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Business Secretary Jonathon Reynolds are in Tokyo for ‘2+2’ (two ministers for the price of…

Japan’s smoking ban is a sham

31 January 2025 4:14 pm

The Japanese city of Osaka has banned smoking on the streets in an apparent effort to smarten up the city…

The real reason female footballers aren’t on birthday cards

23 January 2025 2:20 am

Oh dear… it appears that birthday and greetings cards are sexist. This is, at least, the claim of a group…

The arrest of South Korea’s president won’t end this saga

15 January 2025 9:16 pm

South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol has been arrested after police officers scaled fences and cut through barbed wire to detain…