The Shinkansen Test

Well I am sure that some of you may have noticed that the output on the Japanese Blog has been somewhat Saharan. This has been due to both myself and the honourable Takayama absolutely scythed down by a viscious virus picked up on the plane out here. The problem has been that as we were more or less completely out of action for the first two weeks of this particular trip all of our normal workload turned into a bit of a mountain.

This having been said, I did manage to further my research into the effects of volcanic spa water on cold tins of lager with a trip into the mountains last week. Further research into this pressing subject will urgently be conducted before we leave in ten days time but that is not what I want to write about today.

Before leaving England I was asked by a person I had met if I saw Japan through rose tinted glasses. I believe not and whilst this blog generally takes a humourous but respectful look at the land of the rising sun as seen through the eyes of a stranger, in truth I haven't found that much to be hyper-critical of. This is about to change but before I unleash my critical voice I would like to clarify a position first.

There is absolutely nothing worse than arriving in another culture and giving it the "high hat". Looking down your nose at the workings of other peoples' way of life and criticising the country in which you are a guest. This is a particular problem seen in ex-patriot communities. I saw it in Spain in the early nineties when my very late father and his group of friends, British settlers, would sit and discuss all that was wrong with Spain and the lazy Spaniard. After many a brandy this group of retired "business-men" would inevitably conclude that "What Spain needs is another Franco." Not really a surprising outcome from men who had pictures of Margaret Thatcher on their white villa walls and amongst whom some of which had made their fortunes from her prison building programme.

The point I am making is that it is simply bad manners to arrive in another country and then start to pick holes in the way things are done. I notice that in English language newspapers published in Japan there are often letters from Americans critical of how the Japanese do things and I wouldn't want to be seen in such a dim light. As all who know me I hope will tell, I love Japan, I love the people, I respect their culture and am constantly amazed by its resilience and ability to marry progress with tradition.

A national icon: The first Shinkansen

Japan is a land known all over the world for producing innovation. The latest Shinkansen which travels north from Tokyo to Aomori is a fine example. Recent news on this amazing technical innovation told how the post war steam engines took 26 hours to make this journey. By the late sixties and the advent of the first generation of Shinkansen the journey time was down to 10 hours. As the world famous bullet train design improved the time came down and down and by the end of the nineties it was only a 5 hour trip time to this northern outpost. The new Shinkansen which commenced its timetable this year now does the trip in about 3 hours.

Shinkansen Innovation and Progress

One could comment on how we have yet to build a Shinkansen service in the UK and the much politically promoted "West Coast" line, our first attempt, will no doubt take four times as long to build as the project planners tell us, cost six times over budget and then come in with a great fanfare of political trumpets and an immediate speed restriction due to adverse weather conditions! Perhaps that is why Hitachi, Shinkansen train specialists, pulled out of the bidding for the contract!!!

This train technology is iconic in Japan and represents the Japanese nation at its best speaking volumes about Japanese culture. Any delay in the service whatsoever results in an item on the headline news of the state broadcaster, NHK, accompanied by a Shinkansen official bowing low and apologising publicly to the Japanese people. As previously reported on this blog, the worst snow in 70 years in 2009 saw a delay in the service of 25 minutes which was deemed to be only just acceptable through circumstance but questions were asked in the Japanese parliament about the issue. The Shinkansen carries the pride of the nation, it is fast, it is reliable, it provides a service to a need and it is throughout its construction a statement of quality. The Shinkansen serves the Japanese people and serves them well.

I make all of these points because I am going to propose that we use the Shinkansen as the ideal benchmark of how things should work in Japan. I would even propose that it provides strong evidence of how things can work in Japan. Let's call it the Shinkansen Test; is it speedy, is it efficient, is it reliable and does it serve the people?

This is the test which I am now going to apply to the Japanese legal system, specifically the management of criminal investigations. Unfortunately I am going to have to be critical as the evidence I have uncovered this past two weeks is quite frightening. Before I explain let us have a sense of balance rather than just fall into the ex-pat trap of prejudice. Japan has 120 million people, it is the third largest global economy and it is, in my opinion, a wonderful place and culture to visit and live amongst. In a human organisation of such numbers and complexity it is unimaginable that everything works perfectly, human beings are not perfect. So the fact that 120 million of them appear to get so many things right has to be weighed in the balance of this critique.

However in the administration of criminal justice Japan would appear to have a severe problem which does not sit well with its proud record of being progressive whilst holding dear tradition. In the U.K. I have been involved in recent years with the issue of miscarriage of justice. On HumanRightsTV you will find the Innocence Network UK channel and testimonies from Paul Blackburn and Susan May together with material on the current cases of Sam Hallam and Simon Hall. Our own justice system has much to be concerned about when viewed through the lens of these cases. All of this work has led me to become involved with a project to bring together exonorees from all around the world at a conference in Cincinatti in April 2011. And that involvement led me to the case of Mr Sugaya, a man released from prison in 2009 after having spent 17.5 years in police cells and prison as a result of a dreadful miscarriage of justice.

Yesterday we visited this quite, small and seemingly gentle man to video his testimony and that of Mrs Nishimaki, an equally seemingly unremarkable woman who appears to have single handedly been the catalyst which saved Sugaya-san from an unjust destiny. We will be posting this dramatic and challenging material on a new HumanRightsTV Japan channel within the next month together with an interview with one of the lawyers instrumental in the case. I will leave a lot of the incredible story we have heard until this work is complete and for now just concentrate on the bare facts of the case as it has been told to us.

Our first meeting was with the lawyer and he revealed an interesting insight into the Japanese management of criminal cases. He expressed the view that once a suspect is arrested a conviction is more than 98% guaranteed. He also questioned the procedure which allows the police 27 days custody from arrest for questioning without any legal representation for the suspect. In this matter of unrepresented custody he was of the strong opinion that Japan lagged behind the world in its administration of criminal justice. The lawyer also noted that this long period of questioning was not the subject of any video recording or audio recording and the methods employed by the police in interrogation remain unscrutinised.

In our interviews yesterday we first met Mrs Nishimaki who diligently took us to the scene of crime and walked us through the terrain of events. She explained how the case involved a 4 year old child who had been abducted, sexually abused, murdered and dumped by a river. She told how the police investigation appeared to take a long time and that initial enquiries focused on known offenders, people who watched child pornography and those around the area at the time.

As the investigation faltered the police began to ask about "suspicious people" requesting that the public report anyone of concern. This is Japan of the early 1990's, this is provincial Japan, this is a place where neighbours know each other and family bonds are strong in a way we probably haven't seen in the UK for a few of generations. Within this social framework Mr Sugaya was suspicious. He seemingly lived alone, he didn't speak to his neighbours and he was only at home at weekends in his small flat where he watched videos.

This reported behaviour was enough to place Sugaya-san on the list of suspects. The suspicion of the police was apparently intensified because a recent child sex offender prosecution had been successful and in that case the accused also had a large video collection. Please note that there was no indication made that any of the material in such a collection was of a criminal nature, the connection is simply that the video collection was large.

As the investigation progressed the police collected human fluid samples from Mr Sugaya's rubbish outside his flat and from that were able to show that he had the same blood group, B positive, as the murderer. This was enough to propel matters to an arrest.

Sugaya-san disclosed the moment of his arrest in the interviews yesterday. He told how police burst into his flat, violently pushed him into the corner and began shouting at him. He said that they had a photograph of the victim which they waved in his face and shouted, "This is the face of the young girl you killed, you killed her so now we are arresting you."

That is some statement to make based on a large video collection and membership of a blood group. The other evidence was that he didn't talk to his neighbours, he lived as a single man alone and he appeared to only be at home at weekends. In addition, police investigations had revealed that his occupation was as a school bus driver for kindergarten children.

Not exactly what anyone would rationally call overwhelming evidence and perhaps that accounts for what happened next. Mr Sugaya was taken to a police station and interrogated for 14 hours non-stop. During this interrogation, according to his testimony, he was screamed at, beaten and dragged around the room by his hair. After those 14 hours he confessed to the crime and provided a detailed script of "what happened".

For an historian context is the grail and if we now look at who Mr Sugaya was before the police arrived maybe we can see why he confessed. Sugaya-san was a middle aged man who was single. He came from a family of no particular wealth who lived in quite a cramped space. He was not a character filled with either education or self-assurance, a rather ordinary little man who was quite and a gentle character. Shy is how he and other people described him. He worked conscientiously at his job in a very Japanese way, following the rules, being punctual, being polite and doing as he was told at all times. His one small luxury was that he was able to maintain a very small flat so at weekends he could escape from the cramped family home and watch videos in peace. Being a shy man, outside of his home and alone he did not have the confidence to speak with his neighbours.

Yesterday he claimed that the police interrogation terrified him to the state where he felt it was only possible to stop the intimidation by confessing. The police had got the man they needed to fit the crime.

At this point I would express the opinion that in the two years I have been working on miscarriage of justice cases I have been shocked to find that in all the cases I know of the police have made the evidence fit a vulnerable accused rather than use evidence to prove a crime. That this appears to be the case in Japan maybe illustrates something about a universality of the psychology of some of those who become police officers. What it certainly does show, and I also understand this from cases I know of in the U.S.A., is that this critique of the Japanese justice system is not their problem alone.

In Mr Sugaya's case even his defence lawyer told him on first meeting that he was guilty! According to Mr Suguaya's testimony the defence lawyer said, "You are now under investigation for three similar crimes so you must have committed one of them at least." When your defence lawyer effectively is working for the prosecution what hope can you possibly entertain. Publicly Sugaya stuck to his confession but privately from day one he was writing to his brother maintaining his innocence.

In this case the role of DNA evidence was pivotal both at trial and ultimately in proving innocence. At the time of his arrest the use of DNA evidence was something only big city forces had started using. The local police force were very keen on this new progressive tool to catch criminals and saw in the Sugaya investigation the possibility of validating the new methodology and thus attaining the funding so they could have such equipment and facilities. Therefore they pressed to substantiate the case with DNA evidence.

The DNA samples were taken from the unfortunate girl's clothing. These items of clothing had been in the river for at least 12 hours before they were recovered. The items, including a blouse and a skirt, had been kept in a police locker for months and had even started to grow mould. At first the regional police applications to a laboratory were turned down, it was the early days of DNA testing and the samples were initially believed to be unsuitable for the procedure. However the eager police persisted and persisted and eventually they talked a laboratory into providing a DNA test and used that to help establish Mr Sugaya's guilt.

Absolutely Innocent
Source: Japan Times

There is much more to this story but I am sure that you can all see how this case illustrates major concerns about the Japanese criminal justice system. If we add to the tale that in the lengthy and time consuming appeal process judge after judge refused to re-examine the DNA samples or physically look at the scene of crime preferring to find the confession to be compelling evidence, then we realise a problem which is deep rooted. Fortunately for Sugaya-san, Mrs Nishimaki stepped in where highly paid legal professionals failed so dramatically.

Nishimaki-san's only connection with the prisoner was that she too was a bus driver for kindergarten children. In a very Japanese way of thinking she found it impossible to reconcile how a person charged with the task of delivering children safely to school could possibly be a child murderer. She wrote to Sugaya and told him that if he did the crime he should apologise to the family of the victim and serve his sentence but if he was actually not guilty he should never give up proclaiming his innocence. Sugaya yesterday revealed how this letter saved his life. When he received it he was at the stage of complete mental collapse and surrender to his fate but the words of this woman breathed a spirit of resistance into him which gave him new found strength.

From that point Mrs Nishimaki set about building a campaign to save Sugaya. She mapped out the scene of the crime in such a way to demonstrate that the original confession was simply an impossible tale. In terms of the location and the terrain the sequence of events in the confession are simply not credible at any number of points and the proposed timeline of the confession was shown to be physically impossible to achieve. Most importantly, through the attention and support she gathered, the DNA tests were repeated and showed clearly that the DNA on the victim's clothes was not that of Mr Sugaya. The campaign pressed home and in 2009 Sugaya was released.

For him, the suffering he has endured has been immense. His father died not long after his arrest due to the shock of the situation. In provincial Japan, even today, to be the father of a child murderer would make it all but impossible to step outside the door of your house just to go shopping. Add to that a media which besieged his family from the onset and crucified their lives in the name of circulation figures and the physical and emotional stress could kill anyone. Sugaya's mother also died whilst he was in prison and besides the life time he lost we have yet to mention the experience of interrogation and imprisonment on a shy vulnerable man.

Hashimoto, a senior police officer in the case, allegedly refuses to accept that Sugaya is innocent even today. If this is true then it has to alarm the Japanese tax payer. If a senior police officer refuses to believe conclusive DNA testing and a pardon in favour of a large video collection and a forced confession then surely questions have to be asked. How can the intellectual capacity such a position represents be suitable for the precious and well paid role of public guardian?

That all of the senior appeal judges who refused to re-examine the evidence or look at the scene of crime claim now they cannot comment on the case as they have now retired also must stretch the patience of the Japanese tax payer. Those retirements rest comfortably on large pensions supplied by the Japanese citizen. Surely that citizen has the right to demand accountability of judges, retired or active, rather than be arrogantly denied due to an erroneous idea that retirement relieves responsibility for duties performed in public office.

Sugaya has asked all of these people for an apology and they have all failed to meet their moral responsibility. If those who created a miscarriage of justice are not prepared to face the consequence of their actions, if they are not going to accept the failings of the system, how then can any Japanese citizen hope for change? Those who do not possess the moral strength for high office should perhaps be considered as unworthy of a lucrative tax payer sponsored pension.

Today Sugaya asks for the simple respect of an apology, in times gone by some of those officials might have been told to wash their necks (non-Japanese readers I am sure will get the import of this euphemism). If the law wishes to preserve a rigid conservative methodology of the past then perhaps its officials should have old traditions applied to their failings!

Certainly there has to be great shame when a very ordinary woman can clearly see a miscarriage of justice but highly paid police, lawyers, judges and courts, supposed experts, refuse to see anything wrong. However, when the citizen in the unassuming shape of Mrs Nishimaki can mount a successful challenge to these proud and supposedly erudite figures of authority then the spirit of Japanese justice will always ultimately be safe.

This is where we can leave this story, more will follow on HumanRightsTV and the forthcoming Japanese channel but before we go I would make two points.

Firstly, I apologise to all good Japanese people if any rudeness on my part is perceived here in my writing. I am a guest in your country and as I have stated see much more right in your culture than I see in error. I would also say that this problem is not exclusively a Japanese issue and whilst the details differ, miscarriage of justice is a cause we should all fight for in this new Age of Transparency.

Secondly, the Shinkansen test! For a nation which is so well known for its innovation and ability to hold onto tradition why should it be impossible to reform the criminal justice system? Legal representation from the moment of arrest and tape recording of all admissible interviews has to be a simple step that would immediately go a long way to protect Japanese justice from the shame of a miscarriage. The rule of law is the basis of all progressive human cultures but transparent justice is the hallmark of civilisation. If we pose the Shinkansen test on the Japanese criminal justice system as exposed by the Sugaya case then does it answer the questions:

1. Is Japanese Criminal Justice speedy?
2. Is Japanese Criminal Justice efficient?
3. Is Japanese Criminal Justice reliable?
4. Does Japanese Criminal Justice serve the people?

If and when Japanese Criminal Justice fails this Shinkansen test then the pride of the Japanese people should lead them to innovate without fear. They should be assured that they can lead the world with justice in just the same way as they lead the world with the Shinkansen.

Iconic Innovation Japanese Style

Tokyo 2011: No Sacred Cows

Additional Features! I am going to add to my postings a "heads up" notification regarding the content of each article. This, hopefully, will allow some selectivity for the audience. The following examples how this will work and in future each article with begin with such a "heads up header".

PDW

Medical * Administrative Detail * Mono-culturalism * David Cameron

This introduction might suffer from my usual attempts to break back into stride when I return here but once you churn your way through the opening I think I can promise a few gems for your enjoyment.

As many of you will know the last four months have presented some very obstinate challenges to both the Honourable Takayama-sama and myself. I wont bore you, for a change, with all of the details but suffice to say that seeing the back end of 2010 off nearly killed us both!

Oh how we both yearned to be back home in the comfort and security of Meguro-ku and enjoy working at a much more civilised pace. We arrived at Heathrow filled with expectation and a certain amount of relief that we were flying with ANA on the evening flight; just that bit more civilised.

How were we to know that we were about to face 11 hours of hell? And my dear friends, do you know what made that hell so exquisite? Throughout the most painful journey either of us have ever endured going East all around us was the most professional of customer service....why hadn't we flown B.A., at least we could have vented our frustration on the poor service from the cabin staff. But no, we had top quality service, good food, total respect as we both suffered tremendously.

The cause of the suffering was in the case of the most honourable of wives, a viscious onset of travel sickness where every tumble of turbulence exacerbated the problem. In my own case, the arm injury suffered before Christmas and then compounded by repetitive strain injury as a result of video editing over the holiday period, allowed me not one single position in my seat where comfort could be obtained. Add to this my own personal sloppiness in not putting the high strength pain killers prescribed by the quack in my hand luggage and what you have is a recipe for increasing levels of pain as connected muscle systems try to compensate for the stress in my right arm.

By the time we got off the plane, exactly 8 days ago, we were utterly exhausted and more than a little tetchy with each other. And that sore throat which had started to develop four hours into the flight had now become a sensation somewhat similar, I would imagine, to swallowing razor blades. That we made it home without contacting divorce lawyers was an absolute miracle but we got here and then we both collapsed onto our futon in the "Japanese Room".

My sore throat developed into a fever and has kept me housebound until yesterday when I managed to go to the local shops. Takayama has battled the same virus and today we were off to the doctors, which will now provide the substance of this article.

Let me pose you all a question first, imagine that you are new to an area and you need a doctor (I am talking about in the U.K. here). Let us further suppose that you are actually feeling unwell at the time, not bad enough for hospital but not slight enough to avoid the need for medical advice. Now I ask you all to picture what happens when you turn up at the local doctors surgery, which you have found through a Google search, and say, "I am new in the area and would like to see a doctor."

Please, conjure up the image in your mind, take your time, savour every detail your imagination can provide; the surly aggressive receptionist, the claims that you may not qualify to be at that particular surgery, the need to fill in forms and provide various forms of identity proof which you may or may not have on you. as I have said, take your time and let your creativity explore every conceivable response and then ask yourself if you stand a hope in hell of seeing a G.P. that day.

We arrived at the G.P. surgery at 12.07 hrs. The new readers to this blog will not be aware of the fact that when engaged in any form of administrative process in Japan, medical, social, corporate or otherwise, it is my unerring habit to check the time from the moment I am first served. Takayama-sama spoke to the receptionist who looked directly at her as she talked and smiled re-assuringly. The receptionist then looked at me and smiled, she took out a clipboard with a form attached and passed it over to my honourable wife.

As Takayama sat and completed the form I took my usual stock check of the surroundings. A gently beautiful tropical fish tank sat immediately besides the glass entry doors. This was filled with blue and green fish, sparkling coral and produced the most relaxing sound of gurgling water I had ever heard. I suspected that a specialist fish tank engineer had come in and somehow fine tuned the gurgle to the "medical establishment" setting. You may laugh!!!

Music was piped into the waiting room space and I took a few moments to assess this contrived ambiance. Orchestral renditions, pre-dominantly strings absolutely no horns, of gentle Japanese classic tones and melodies. I would describe the overall effect as being one of comfortable certainty.

The seating was of the usual high quality in the comfort department, powder blue, bench arrangement with very, very ample padding and all spotlessly clean. There were eight people already in the waiting room. Six of them were elderly and the two others wore very similar suits, I assumed them to be drug company reps waiting to see the GP once the surgery closed for lunchtime.

I was about to instigate an in-depth study of the available reading material and ancillary amenities but this was strangled at birth due to the fact that I was called through to the GP.

In his room he sat, at a smallish desk and had what was clearly a standard form for consultancy. He wrote a few notes and then asked me a couple of introductory questions in English before moving onto the more complicated stuff in Japanese with Takayama translating.

I took the use of English to be for two prime reasons, firstly to impress me and secondly as an act of really good manners.

In very quick time the consultation was complete and we were back at the front desk. As Takayama attended to the business of completing the paperwork and paying the bill, I took time to give as thorough an examination of the operational nature of the surgery as the short window of opportunity allowed.

My first observation was that all of the female reception staff were dressed in a very soft pastel pink which included a rather tasteful light knitted cardigan of the same tone. There was an absence of noise, by that I mean that the telephone didn't screech, the receptionists never raised their voices above the gentleness threshold and all sounds appeared to have been set to whisper mode.

I also noticed that beyond the glass screen one of the reception staff received my notes and began to enter them into a computer data base. The notes were in a transparent plastic sleeve and already numbered and colour coded.

I expect that the most respected Dr Swift and Jonathon Deets just experienced pupil dilation!

Yes, colour coding and at first it completely stumped me as to the purpose. The first clue was in the cabinet behind the front counter. This was of the wooden pigeon hole variety and beneath each "box" there were numbers from 1 to 100. What was immediately interesting about the numbers on the wooden frame beneath each box was that they were matched to a colour: 1 was on a red sticker, 2 was on a yellow sticker, 3 was on a purple sticker and so on to 9 which was on a blue sticker. Each number associated with a distinct colour.

At first this system puzzled me and I struggled to work out why anyone would do such a thing. After all it is as easy to recognise number 32 as it is to recognise purple/yellow! Then I looked down the rows of files which, unlike the solitary cabinet behind the front desk, were on a hanging frame system all along the wall of the back office. The front edge of each folder numbered.

Then I realised, I could see where the files in the 7000's were. I could even see where the files between 4500 and 4800 were. Then the true moment of realisation, I could see file number blue-dot, yellow-dot, purple-dot, purple-dot (9233) from at least twelve feet away and looking through a glass window. Absolute Genius! With thousands of files you can spot the one you want in seconds. You can even see immediately if it is in the wrong section!!!!!!

Everyone has known misfiling, especially if you have had any dealings with the NHS, but misfile in this system and it stands out vividly in colour! Very important, I would suggest, when dealing with medical notes.

My sense of awe was disturbed by Takayama telling me we were done. I looked at the clock, 12.21 hrs, we had been precisely 14 minutes from first service to completion of visit. A visit by a new patient, who was a foreigner, admittedly with a fluent translator, all paperwork completed and medical examination delivered with opinion and advice.

Now recently someone asked me if my view of Japan was through rose tinted glasses? Obviously this person doesn't know me too well whereas my closer friends, I would hope, would know that rose tinting clashes with my eye colour.

So yes, I did have to pay for my visit and the critical may say, "Aha, you are not comparing like with like, the NHS is free!" And I would respond, "Correct, and even in some cases to foreigners who arrive in the country just to obtain treatment." I realise this last comment is a contentious one but just keep your powder dry because I haven't finished yet and if you found that contentious then you may need to get some heart attack pills in for later.

The Japanese health care system works on a part payment method. As a Japanese national or a bona fide member of the Japanese tax system you pay between 10 to 30% of the cost of any medical service. Takayama, oh yes, I forgot to mention, in those 14 minutes she was also examined, paid Yen300, about 12% of the cost and amounting to approximately £2.50. I had to pay the full amount of Yen3000, amounting to, obviously, about £25.00.

You see in Japan the idea of getting something for nothing is an absolute non-starter, it just isn't something Japanese people would understand. As the honourable HMil (Honourable Mother-in-Law) would say, "There is no more expensive word than Free!". That is why the whole idea of "social security" in Japan is radically different to the U.K. concept. If you asked about social security in Japan your most probable explanation of what that term meant would be "Keeping everything Japanese!" As for benefits, well yes, there are benefits but Japanese culture would also ask what the responsibilities were that are required in order to gain the benefits.

Let's put this into a slightly different perspective. If you told Japanese people that in Britain a young girl can get pregnant without a husband or supporting father and then get a free apartment paid for at the tax payers expense they would think that you were telling a joke of some sort. Please don't tell me that doesn't happen or it is a Daily Mail scaremongering tactic because I have worked on estates with gangs, worked with "deprived families" and sat and listened to many more than one young girl tell me her plans for the future: to get pregnant and get a council flat.

The point I am trying to make is the connection between benefits and responsibilities. In Japan the distinction is very clear; you don't get something for nothing. You certainly don't get anything if you are not a Japanese taxpayer and as Japan is a mono-cultural society then in 97% of the cases that means you are not just a Japanese taxpayer but also ethnically Japanese.

As a Japanese you buy into the one great idea of being Japanese, in the Japanese way as the Japanese identity. That is what a mono-culture is. And because everyone buys into this idea, admittedly to a greater or lessor extent, then social deviance is much more strongly resisted, both actively and passively, in families, in communities and in society. This produces that which the Japanese cultural psyche craves most, certainty.

Certainty in management, certainty in customer service, certainty in social order, certainty in social behaviour, all of which certainty provides the bedrock of social security, or as previously stated, keeping everything Japanese.

David Cameron's recent speech on the effects of multiculturalism was, in my opinion, absolutely spot on. People often make a dreadful mistake when they consider who I am. They look at my work as the Project Director of HumanRightsTV , they look at my appearance (which admittedly doesn't help) and they think I am placed somewhere in amongst the left wing do gooder brigade of airheads. Actually not! But that doesn't mean I support fascism or racism, I just believe that rights can only be sustained when responsibilities are met. If you have a community with different cultural values how do you sustain rights when responsibilities are interpreted without uniformity?

Let's be clear, no-one in their right mind wants to see the U.K. turned into moronic flag wavers who know an oath of allegiance but are crippled in the cognitive department (no names, no pack drill), but unless we consider the way forward carefully we are heading towards social catastrophe. I am not suggesting that the Japanese model is what we need but I am suggesting that as a comparative model it dramatically highlights what it is we have lost.

Coming Next: Economies of Scale, is bigger better?