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First of all, this edition of Seijigiri has been released a few days late due to editing difficulties. Batteries ran out, memory cards filled and mics made strange line noise during recording. So, I decided to release this edition of the show largely unedited. The edits I remember removing are a few coughs, a mic falling over and one loud belch.

This edition of the show begins with a look at Prime Minister Hatoyama’s falling approval ratings (which has become an ongoing theme) and turns to a discussion of the Futenma issue and Hillary Clinton’s (then) upcoming visit to Japan.

After that, discussion turns to the candidacy of Ryoko Tani and we are blessed with a rant from Mr DeOrio.

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In this edition of TPR News: TPR News is back and a bit slimmed down; Futenma causes headaches for Hatoyama; Ozawa’s still in trouble; and political parties go for star power to win votes.

Politics

With the Upper House elections only two months away, the most recent Jiji poll shows that public approval of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s Cabinet has begun to drop below the 20% mark, the point of sure demise for LDP governments, which means all but one of Hatoyama’s predecessors in the past 55 years. A Yomiuri poll of last weekend presents almost equally dire figures with the Cabinet garnering the approval of just 24% of respondents, a drop of nine points since the previous poll. The Jiji and Yomiuri polls showed disapproval of the Cabinet at 64% and 67%, respectively. (Read on …)

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Yesterday, a council made of up policy affairs chiefs from ten parties met in order to discuss “the pros and cons of using Web sites, blogs, e-mail and the microblogging service Twitter” during election campaigns. The council is called the 「インターネットを使った選挙運動の解禁についての各党協議会」 in Japanese, so let’s call it “The Multiparty Council Concerning Lifting the Ban on the Use of the Internet in Election Campaigns.”

According to the Yomiuri, the council decided that web sites and blogs could be updated during campaigns, but stopped short of lifting the ban on email and Twitter, as it was feared that the latter two could be used to slander people. However, it is expected that the ban on email and Twitter will also be lifted in the near future.

Obviously it makes little sense to allow blogs and then disallow Twitter on the grounds that it might lead to slander. That said, I don’t think anyone expects the group of ten policy chiefs to have a full understanding of the services they’re discussing.

The ban is expected to be lifted in time for this summer’s Upper House election. When the LDP was still the ruling party, the DPJ unsuccessfully submitted legislation to have the ban lifted four times.