Quote Originally Posted by dadako
Personally I think that japans LDP (and the watchdog) is just about the best system of politics about, being a liberal democrat supporter myself I can see the benifits and would feel much more comfortable living in a country where the goverment hasn't changed since the war...
I'll forgive you this mistake as you are British, and British parties mostly are waht are are called (i.e. liberals are liberal, conservatives are conservative, etc.). But in Japan's case, names are as meaningly as the "democratic" in "democratic republic of Congo". The LDP is by far the most conservative party (yes, more than the tiny "conservative party"), while the 2 mian opposition parties have been renamed everything from socialist, democratic, liberal, conservative, democratic socialist and socialist democratic (well yes, a socilaist party can become the liberal one at the next election, as can the conservative become democratic, etc.). As Japanese will tell you, anyway, they all have the same ideas, and only care about being elected (as they have no ideals, its only a struggle for power and money).

Quote Originally Posted by MeAndroo
This is nitpicking, since it's such a short period, but the LDP enjoyed a brief vacation from power when some of the opposition parties (socialist, communist, new gov't) joined forces and used the bursting of the economic bubble to oust the LDP from power in 1993. The LDP was back in 94, but as a junior partner to the Socialist Party. By 1996 the LDP was back in the majority.
What you are referring to is only for the upper-house (参議院), which has very little power. They have never been out of power of the lower-house.

I disagree with your/Woronoff's opinion point that politicians don't care about the people, at least their constituency. My view is that it's ALL they care about, ignoring the needs of the country at large.
Well, Woronoff also says that pork-barrel politics is very ripe in Japan, but he also says that the only time they care about their electorate is during the election period. So, yes, they don't mind using the local government's money to build useless roads, huge townhalls for a tiny town, unnecessary dams, etc. But I see this more as a favour to the amakudari working in the construction industry than to the people, who usually oppose such projects - except if they are manual workers and that means employment for them.