A lone crusader takes on the big guns of Japan’s ruling party—and survives for the time being

AS ONE of 15 deputy secretaries-general in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Yukio Ubukata may often have found it hard to make his voice heard. Not in the past week. With his disarmingly unaffected manner, the veteran member of parliament has hit the airwaves denouncing what he calls a dangerous concentration of power and money in the hands of his boss, Ichiro Ozawa.

He knew it was a strategy with a high risk of self-immolation. Mr Ozawa is the DPJ’s secretary-general. As the architect of its landslide election victory last August, he is widely regarded as the most powerful politician in Japan. Even Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister, yields before him. …