Former Japanese Cabinet Secretary and Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura visited London today, meeting with Local Government Association Deputy Chairman and Leicestershire council leader David Parsons to discuss the role and function of local politicians in the UK.
After leaving the Ministry of Home Affairs where he had served as a bureaucrat, Takemura was elected mayor of Yokaichi, Shiga and then governor of Shiga prefecture. Elected a member of the lower house of the Diet in 1986, he served as a cabinet minister of the coalition governments of the mid-1990s. He is now a visiting professor at Ryukoku University, Kyoto.
