Tokyo

THE outcome of Japan's upper house parliamentary election due on July 10 may not amount to the country's equivalent of the UK's "Brexit" vote - at least not in terms of the scope of its impact - but it could nevertheless bring some surprises in a contest whose result (rather like that of Brexit) is largely being taken for granted.

As the polls tell it (although the image of pollsters is more than a little tarnished nowadays) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its chief coalition partner the New Komeito Party are all set to cruise to a convincing victory in the July 10 election.