Hugh

Potential candidate for the BC Greens in Victoria-Beacon Hill if a by-election is triggered, perhaps?

127/ British election night coverage needs to go completely back to the drawing board. It has become a pointless mess of endless talking heads, with results and analysis seemingly seen as an inconvenient side show. You have most of the best psephologists in the country working with you – use them!

“Got me Thinking” text meme

“The earthquake in New York City got me thinking about how you used to make my earth quake every day. There was real magnitude to our love. No need to text back.”

In thinking more about the right wing's conflict with MOF, I'm reading this book that's a conversation between two Sankei journalists. On virtually every page Abe is getting mad at someone. They literally

1. It's far-right: Sanseito was always on the far-right from its early inception. It promoted alternative views on history and were skeptical of climate change (something that an early founder, Kazuya, was uncomfortable with).

I actually kind of thing centre-lefties were lied to so they don’t get the fall for it again award yet.

This is reserved for ppl who vote liberal again:

Yes, they're both similar parties on the Third Pole. Ishin's current deputy/co-leader is the infamous party hopper Maehara Seiji (formerly with the DPFP)

Ishin also supports making higher ed. free 💀

to gain support among the working generation which had supported the LDP in 2012 and continued to vote for Abe due to the long shadow of the "nightmare DPJ administration."

DPFP is NOT that right-wing, the party traces its lineage from the wreckage of the DP implosion after Maehara folded the party. Tamaki retooled Koike's vehicle for his own purposes and gained traction w/ a singular focus on "increasing take home pay" (1/x)

Kobayashi is the best Jenrick analogue, but needs a lot of work.

There's evidence Takaichi could stabilize the ship by winning over conservative defections and whip up a coalition w/ DPFP + DIY but lose the Komeito.

Powerbrokers (Kishida, Ishiba) would favour Koizumi or Hayashi to ally w/ Ishin.

New poll shows that in the 2025 Upper House election, roughly equal amounts of the Sanseito's support came from 2021 LDP voters (32.3%) and previous non-voters (32.8%).

Post-election, the LDP has plunged to a historic low as the CDP, DIY, and DPFP slug it out for a not-so-distant second place.

Wow. Shocked to discover Jeremy Corbyn has split from the LDP - they let anyone in there these days.

A house divided Thinking about the deeper roots of the Ishiba crisis

New at Observing Japan: As Japan’s politics heads into a consequential stretch, I tried to think about the deeper drivers of the conflict that is likely to drive Ishiba from office.

open.substack.com/pub/observin...

If you add up the vote share of the four "conspiracy parties" you get

60% for the teenagers
63% for the 20s (zoomers)
58% for the 30s (millennials)

Though remember that this is just exit poll vote share—in absolute terms, the under-40s are a demographic minority in Japan (only around 26mn voters)

He either is a) negotiating the terms of his surrender, b) is calling his rivals' bluff, thinking they don't have the numbers, or idk, c) he genuinely wants to break the party by escalating conflict. In the meantime, his own numbers are breaking.

So either Mainichi misinterpreted something, or someone in the LDP, possibly/likely a former PM, told Mainichi (??) that Ishiba was going to resign and they ran with the story, which Ishiba later denies

NHK: Following Ishiba’s meeting with former PMs Aso, Suga and Kishida, he told the press that any and all media reports of his resignation are false and showed his resolve to stay on so as not to create a political vacuum in these trying times www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20...

Hayashi/Koizumi/Takaichi main ones to watch. Wonder if Kobayashi takes a run to further raise his profile?

石破首相、退陣へ　8月末までに表明　参院選総括踏まえ | 毎日新聞 石破茂首相は23日、自民党が8月にまとめる参院選の総括を踏まえ、同月までに退陣を表明する意向を固め、周辺に伝えた。首相は同日、自民党の麻生太郎最高顧問、菅義偉副総裁、岸田文雄前首相と会談し、自らの進退を巡り協議するとみられる。

I don't doubt that Ishiba is quitting but it's interesting that it's a Mainichi scoop that neither NHK nor Nikkei has yet.

mainichi.jp/articles/202...

Early voting up 6.5% over the last time this class of Upper House seats was up.

Final Ministry of Internal Affairs estimates put it at 26.2 million out of 104.2 million for 25% turnout - assuming no late turnout surge, we’re on track for the high 50s.

Looks like Japan may have its highest turnout Upper House election in more than a decade. Buckle up!

This was a footnote in a post I wrote about opinion polls on June 16, which gives some sense of how quickly Sanseitō has surged.

Kamiya Sohei loves manga, and loves to describe Sanseito as a Shonen manga/anime story-line. He has done this since his Ryoma Project days over a decade ago. In his latest speech he says he can sometimes become a Super Saiyan, a reference to Goku (who is an illegal immigrant from a blown-up planet)

BC Greens Need a New Leader. Who Wants the Job? | The Tyee After a disappointing election, a doctor and two student activists are now vying to lead BC’s third party.

Pleasure to have worked with the Tyee on my first piece in their paper covering the BC Green leadership race! Read it here ⬇️

thetyee.ca/News/2025/07...

In Japan, the LDP is headed for its worst showing in the Upper House since 2007 if not 1989.

This is precisely the problem. What serious democratic party can find it tolerable to not even plan for forming a government?

We should not write ourselves off as a pressure group when ten years ago we were the opposition! We run two provinces and govern the lives of seven million Canadians!

guy who advocates for a canadian nuclear program because it's cheaper than a *5% of GDP defense spending target*