If Keir Starmer’s trip to China seemed unfathomable, then his follow-on visit to Tokyo today is even more mysterious. ‘Why on earth is he here?’ the Japanese are asking (those that have noticed he is here that is). There doesn’t seem to be any pressing business for the Prime Minister to discuss with his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi right now. If it is just a courtesy call, then it’s rather a discourteous one since the timing, for her, is terrible.

Wags here are calling the visit a ‘boondoggle’, claiming Starmer just wants to enjoy the cheap shopping

Takaichi faces a make or break snap-election on 8 February. She is seeking to win an outright majority in the lower house and thus a mandate for her ambitious policy platform. Current polling has her on course to do so but nobody here is confident – especially after the bond markets lurched and interest rates spiked last week in response to her controversial fiscal stimulus plans. Her sky-high approval ratings of around 70 per cent have recently slipped, too. 

The bottom line: Takaichi is popular but her Liberal Democratic party is not. How that will manifests on the 8th is hard to predict. Takaichi remains bullish but, if this turns into the election that goes wrong, she could find herself in the bulging ‘where are........

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