Categories
food

Quick and cheesy veggie lasagne

Another recipe of mine which will win no prizes for authenticity, so if you’re an Italian food purist, avert your eyes now!

For the rest this is a perennial home favourite which looks great, is very satisfying and simple to involve kids in its preparation.

Ingredients

* Cheese: Firm mozzarella and/or mild cheddar

* Dry lasagne pasta sheets (those which don’t need pre-cooking)

* 1 bottle of passata

* 1 tin of chopped tomatoes

* 2 medium onions

* 4 cloves of garlic

* 1 bag of Quorn mince or mixed vegetables including courgettes, peppers & mushrooms

* 1/2 cube vegetable stock

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees centigrade.

First the tomato-based sauce. Dice the onions and saute in a good splash of olive oil, sprinkling with some salt and dried oregano or basil. Crumble in half a stock cube and add a glug of water to dissolve it. If you’re going for mince, add the Quorn mince now and cook on a medium heat.

If you’re not using mince slice the vegetables and set to one side.

Crush the garlic and stir into the pan, cook for a minute then add the passata followed by the tinned tomato. Leave to simmer stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile prepare the cheese. I prefer to use the firm long blocks of mozzarella, the balls in bags of water are too soft for this recipe in my experience. Slice the blocks or grate the cheddar.

Check the tomato sauce and season to taste, remembering that the cheese will add more salt to the final flavours.

In a large baking dish line the bottom with pasta sheets, trying to avoid too much overlap. Now spread some of the tomato sauce onto this layer – you want it to be about half a centimetre of sauce. If you’re using them, lay vegetable slices over this. Then add a layer of cheese – not too much, only enough to cover about half of the surface area, it will spread as it melts.

Add another layer of pasta, another layer of sauce, vegetables if used, then more cheese. Continue until the dish can’t hold any more.

At the top you have a choice, you can go crunchy or soft. For a crunchy top add a final layer of pasta sheets then add cheese to this. For a softer finish just top the final sauce layer with cheese. I always use a mix of mozzarella and grated cheddar.

Bake in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, checking after 25 minutes to make sure the top isn’t burning. It’s ready when the pasta sheets are soft.

Tips:

* You can add torn basil leaves or chunks of fresh garlic in the layers to add more flavour.

* If using vegetables try to slice them so that they will cook evenly.

* Spreading on the tomato sauce hot from the pan helps the pasta sheets cook quickly.

* This is a great left-overs dish. To stop it drying out reheat in the oven under foil with a splash of milk under there.

Categories
notes from JK

Why I’m wearing a white poppy this November

This November I’m wearing a white poppy on my coat lapel. It’s from the Peace Pledge Union, a fascinating organisation which dates from 1934.

For me the white poppy acknowledges the loss and suffering of so many in conflicts from all sides: Soldiers, spies, resistance fighters, prisoners, wives, children. Yes, our armed forces have sacrificed enormously – but why should injured soldiers and widows depend on charity from the Royal British Legion for their care? Government sends them into danger, government should give them the care they deserve.

The white poppy is also pledging to find peaceful ways to resolve conflicts. Much more time and energy needs to go into developing non-violent ways of ending conflict. Too many people have died in conflict, yet nations seem content to pour billions into arms and scant pennies into the alternatives.

Read more and buy white poppies on the PPU site.

Categories
current affairs

YouTube Tribunal Success!

Today was the culmination of a process which began in early 2009 when Conservative Cllr Ted Kemble filed a complaint against me for putting clips on YouTube. The full background can be read in my previous blog posts.

The Tribunal hearing was held in a room at the Hilton Metropole Brighton hotel. This was arranged by the Tribunal service. Whilst I was grateful for a good number of supporters in the public gallery, in the hot seat it was just me there to represent myself.

The Council on the other hand had brought Mr Wayne Beglan, an outside barrister along with two council solicitors, a press officer and the Chairman of the Standards Committee.

The Tribunal consisted of Simon Bird QC, Narendra Makanji and David Ritchie. I don’t know Mr Ritchie’s background, Mr Makanji is a Labour activist and involved in a number of public bodies. Mr Bird is a barrister from the same chambers as the Council’s barrister Mr Beglan. However that didn’t stop him rather comprehensively demolishing some of Mr Beglan’s arguments during questioning!

I presented my arguments first. You can view my notes for my presentation here [PDF], though I did range beyond my prepared remarks as the presentation unfolded. The tribunal panel challenged me on a number of points, but mainly on my argument that the code of conduct didn’t apply because I wasn’t acting in my official capacity as a councillor when uploading videos to YouTube. I had difficulty providing clear-cut, legally grounded responses to some of their questions and so I wasn’t surprised when in their judgement they didn’t agree with this specific argument. Thankfully that didn’t affect the positive outcome.

Then the City Council’s barrister made his remarks. I found them to be rather piece-meal and quite often misleading if not factually incorrect. It is hard to tell if these were deliberate attempts to spin the Council’s case or just oversights through failure to fully review all the paperwork. Mr Beglan tried to conjure up a view that I had changed my arguments each time I had been asked to defend my actions. But in fact I was able to rebut this with the paperwork already before the tribunal.

Mr Beglan completely failed to take on my arguments that the Council’s interpretation of the code of conduct impinged on my European Convention on Human Rights article 10 rights to freedom of speech.

I then had a chance to rebut Mr Beglan’s presentation, though the panel through their questioning had done better work than I could have done. To be fair to him, it wasn’t easy to defend the Standards Committee’s original decisions.

Much of the debate ended up being about what constitutes a council resource and what would be improper use of such a resource. Many metaphors and examples were wheeled out, which I think were helpful in exploring the ideas. In the end the copyright issues surrounding the webcast were sidelined by the primacy of the article 10 issues. But it wasn’t disputed that there are exceptions to copyright protection which I could use to legally excerpt clips, and I think this contributed to the view that no resources as meant by the code were used by my actions.

Essentially it came down to this… The Council’s interpretation of the code would result in discrimination against me because I was a councillor — members of the public could do what I had done without restriction, so why couldn’t I? The code of conduct could not and should not be interpreted to restrict my rights to freedom of political expression.

So after an adjournment of an hour and twenty minutes the panel returned to find that they agreed with me that I had not breached the code of conduct. They rejected the findings of the Standards Committee and the sanctions immediately cease to have effect.

The tribunal’s full reasoning will be published in 14 days and there are 28 days for the Council to apply for leave to appeal. In summary the tribunal stated, in reference to my actions that:

6.1 He did not fail to treat Councillor Theobald with respect;

6.2 The resources of the Council which he used in posting the video clips fell outside the scope of the resources to which paragraph 6b(ii) applied;

6.3 To find the Appellant breached paragraph 6(b)(ii) of the Code on the facts of this case would involve a disproportionate interference with his right to freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of the ECHR.

Whilst a stressful day, I didn’t find the legal debate and questioning quite as difficult as I had feared. For someone representing themselves (I refused to spend any money on this) I think I did reasonably well, mainly because a number of very kind people offered me tips and read my notes ahead of the hearing. Thank you to everyone who supported me in person, with messages or by signing ORG’s action on this.

I am absolutely delighted with the outcome. It completely erases the original sanctions and findings. It also shows that the code of conduct cannot be used to stifle freedom of expression, which is exactly what the local Conservative councillors were trying to do in filing the complaint in the first place. I address this further in the press release. For as long as the code of conduct still exists (Mr Pickles says it will be go), this result is important in giving councillors across the country greater confidence in their ability to express themselves freely.

Now, back to the work of representing my constituents as best I can. But I will also be following this up looking into a variety of issues. The Tribunal chose not to address my concerns with how the original Standards Committee panel worked including Cllr Lepper claiming not to have seen the videos in question (as supported by witness statements I collected) but then the Standards Committee subsequently flatly denying she said this. Also did the council really need to send so many people to the Tribunal, why did they fight my appeal so hard?

UPDATE: Freedom of Information request now filed. Cllr Kemble and the chair of the original Standards Committee hearing panel are spinning that all I had to do was apologise. No, I overturned being found guilty of improperly misusing council resources (a serious finding which I had to clear) and faced censure + suspension unless I apologised and submitted to re-training.

UPDATE 2: You can hear on BBC iPlayer the tribunal being discussed on BBC Sussex Radio before and after the result. In the second piece Dr Wilkinson from the Standards Committee and Cllr Kemble both participate, sounding rather unrepentant if you ask me!

Categories
notes from JK

How we treat children is a reflection of what we consider to be important

After the Tories had passed their guillotining motion to end last Thursday’s council meeting, all remaining business was put to the vote. I was delighted that the motion Cllr Rachel Fryer and I proposed was passed in that process. However, that we were not able to debate it was a source of regret to me.

Here’s what I would have said…

Full Council 21st October 2010

Speech seconding Notice of Motion on Cuts hitting Children & Young People

Mr Mayor I stand to second this motion as a father, as a son and as someone who believes that family is about community and not just blood ties.

Greens don’t believe there is an economic case for sudden, deep government cuts at this time. However if there must be cuts, they certainly should NOT hurt the most vulnerable and those least able to make the case for the services on which they depend.

It’s a truism to say that children and young people are our future. I believe that how we treat children – who are inherently innocent and trusting – is a reflection of ourselves and of what we believe to be important.

Good health, education and fulfilling work are important. Yet the cuts this motion notes say the opposite. The cuts say bank bailouts, subsidies for nuclear power and cold war era arms like Trident are more important. They are not.

– freezing child benefit for three years;

– cutting the Health in Pregnancy Grant;

– cutting the Sure Start Maternity Grant for all but the first child;

– cuts in Housing Benefit – which will affect families with children the most;

– a cut in Tax Credit entitlements for the poorest by withdrawing the Baby Element;

– the cut in the Child Trust Fund.

These and other cuts say children aren’t important. But that’s not what we believe – children are our future and our inspiration.

Let us show this city what we believe in. By supporting this motion you vote for hope in a better future for our children.

[ENDS]

Categories
notes from JK

The Green view on the national debt

Further to my earlier post on this issue, an additional opportunity to set the national debt in context arose last week. The Conservative group of councillors submitted an extraordinary motion using the national debt to justify massive cuts whilst also reassuring residents that ‘Intelligent Commissioning’ and other actions left the council in a good position to handle the cuts.

Well this motion had to be amended, and so I submitted a detailed amendment, as you can see here.

Unfortunately the amendment fell, because Labour sat on their hands for the vote. Thankfully the motion as a whole also fell. Still Labour need to seriously reflect on what they stand for before coming to the next council meeting.

My speech to the amendment is copied below. I got no response to my final question as Conservative councillors ranted on about other things, if you can bear to watch on the webcast.

Speech proposing amendment to Conservative public debt NoM
21st October 2010

Mr Mayor

Yesterday George Osborne announced as part of the comprehensive spending review that not only would, according to the Local Government Association, local authority budgets be cut by 25.5% but that the cost of borrowing for councils would also be increased by 1%.

This authority and its officers are going to be squeezed beyond all reason. Yet, as benefit cuts bite and the economy suffers from the ill-considered government slashing of public services, our residents will need us more than ever.

Our amendment makes abundantly clear that the current UK national deficit is by no means sufficiently alarming to justify these unprecedented cuts. The deficit is not particularly large by historical comparison, the interest charges are a reasonable proportion of our GDP and the repayments are owed over many years. We include a number of ways in which the deficit could be reduced through tax and benefit reforms, but not public service cuts.

To echo a certain high street store – These are not just cuts, these are coalition government cuts. With lashings of hypocrisy and soaked in misleading statements.

What we are witnessing are not just a few efficiency savings. We are seeing the utter abandonment of whole swathes of our society. At the slightest hint of stormy waters the coalition government are chucking people overboard shouting to them “if you can’t afford to survive then you’re on your own.”

Frankly Mr Mayor, the administration have some gall presenting this motion reassuring residents in the face of this economic and public sector catastrophe.

I urge members to support this amendment. And I finish with a question – did any of the members on that side of the chamber actually check the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s lurid claims about the scale of the deficit, or did they just swallow it – hook, line and sinker?

Categories
notes from JK

October 2010 Full Council

Finally a full council meeting rolled around. There are so few in the year that inevitably the agenda was groaning under the weight of items included – and that was before reams of public questions, deputations and petitions were added.

Once again the need for more council meetings, which start earlier, came to mind – but the Tories will have none of it, and I seem to recall Labour too being opposed last time Greens raised it.

As usual I had a number of questions to councillors which, as usual, were not properly answered. In flagging up issues with the council website I was once again promised that a new site was on its way – a new site has been imminent for the entire 3+ years I’ve been a councillor!

I also continued my attempt to win a commitment to the council using an open licence for its publications, however every time my question is misunderstood or deliberately misconceived.

My final written question was again twisted by the respondent. At a previous debate on the long delayed IRP report we were told it was being delayed because a return to the committee system was imminent. This was a pretty transparent wheeze. To pretend now that the two were unrelated was taking the proverbial biscuit.

The one oral question I’m now permitted  to ask related to how local government cuts would have a massive impact on the local economy. The answers Cllr Mears gave were, at best, tangential to the question.

The meeting saw an excellent debate on the cuts being made to the Connexions as part of public questions, a deputation, a petition and a notice of motion. I think the procedure that results in a debate when a petition has more than 1,250 signatures worked very well – it’s a welcome addition to council meetings.

At long last the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report on councillor allowances was voted on. But as I have long predicted, Labour and Tories voted together to preserve their allowances – so that Brighton & Hove continues to exceed government guidance on the number of special allowances handed out. They also voted against group leaders’ allowances being proportional to the size of their group – which would be patently much fairer than the present system. Once again, it was the old guard defending their interests.

As usual the 4 hour guillotine was activated by the Mayor to end the meeting. However to my surprise the Tories didn’t vote for it. They later revealed that they wanted a chance to rip into my amendment to their motion before going home. Of course once that had been voted on they did propose a new guillotine motion which was passed despite a very mixed vote from Labour and Tories, only Greens consistently voting to carry on with the business before us.

I will cover the two main motions I dealt with in separate posts. I think it’s high time council meetings were re-organised to happen more often. This would allow public questions and petitions to be dealt with a in a more timely way. The meetings should start an hour earlier and we should stay until the work is done. And the Conservatives should be ashamed of their approach – they continue to guillotine meetings as soon as the bits they want are done with, thereby removing the space for debate.

Categories
notes from JK

In a pickle? Not with Eric Pickles backing me!

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/video/parlvid.swf

Last Thursday, as I was preparing for the full council meeting that afternoon, a tweet suggested something extraordinary might be happening in Westminster. No, not a new rainbow coalition to stop the Tory cuts, but something still quite unexpected.

Local government minister Eric Pickles MP rose to answer a question about his planned abolition of the Standards Board, which runs the councillor code of conduct under which I am currently ‘guilty’ for my use of YouTube.

Rather than just provide the answer and sit back down again, Mr Pickles chose to cite my case as an example of why the Standards Board regime needed to go. Well, despite vehemently disagreeing with Mr Pickles on many things, I agree with him on this. The current regime for regulating councillors prevents them from doing what most would naturally assume is their democratic duty. The process is bureaucratic, needlessly involved and often abused for political point-scoring. Good riddance I say.

So Mr Pickles joins fellow minister Grant Shapps MP, John Hemming MP and a swathe of others in supporting my cause. I was invited to discuss Mr Pickle’s support on BBC Sussex Radio last Friday, with his colleague Bob Neill MP – you can listen again here. I’m told this was also covered on BBC South Today.

Until the localism bill is passed, the standards regime remains and I am still subject to it – so I continue to prepare for my appeal tribunal on 3rd November. It will be held from 9.30am at the Brighton Hilton Metropole — all welcome!

Categories
notes from JK

Not worth the panic: This deficit is manageable

To my great frustration, almost every coalition government policy announcement has been prefaced with something along the lines of ‘we must take this action due to the enormous national deficit we have been left to deal with…’

Thusfar this premise has gone woefully unchallenged. Rather than comparing the deficit to something arbitary (like our education or health budgets as I’ve seen Tories doing) let’s compare the current deficit with our national deficits in the past.

The best way to compare deficits past and present is to use a relative measure – deficit as a percentage of GDP. Currently the UK national debt is 71% of GDP. Yet we’ve been well over that in the past century. In 1923 it was 181%, 110% in 1940 and 238% in 1947. We’re fighting an economic battle to recover from the credit crunch, running up a little deficit is to be expected.

The key issue with debt is the interest you need to repay. On that front the current deficit is also not as alarming as the government would have us believe. UK national debt interest repayments peaked at around 7% of GDP in the 1920s. We’ve never been near that level since, and currently interest payments are between 3 and 4% of GDP. Economists feel interest repayments are not a risk until they hit something around 12% of GDP.

The other risk with debt is how quickly you have to pay it off. Thankfully the Treasury have been, dare I say it, ‘prudent’ in how they have raised debt. The average UK debt maturity is 17 years. In other words the average of the repayment terms on our debt means we have 17 years to pay it back. Spain are currently struggling to push their average debt maturity up to just 6.7 years. Spain, Italy and Greece have all been facing huge immediate repayments on short term debt they’ve been using. The UK in the meantime has time to manage the deficit as economic circumstances allow.

So the government’s attempts to protray the national financial position as a househould who have splurged on the credit cards is woefully inaccurate. We don’t have only 30 days to pay it back, the interest isn’t spiralling out of control and we’re not in the worst position ever.

While there’s no doubt that ideally any government should work towards lower deficits, timing is also important. Essentially the cuts we’re going to see imposed on us tomorrow are like starving your family in the hope of paying your mortgage off more quickly.

It doesn’t make sense. Mortgages are stable long-term debts at reasonably stable rates of interest. Starving the family just when they are facing the challenge of a recession is, to put it mildly, foolhardy.

Even running up a little more long term debt to look after our society — with benefits and quality public services — makes moral and economic sense. We would be caring for those most in need, and keeping people in jobs. Which is exactly what our economy needs.

Categories
notes from JK

Letter on licensing in Brighton & Hove

Last week I submitted the following letter to The Argus after having read this article about Cllr Mary Mears’ views on licensing in the city.

Sir,


As a councillor representing Brighton & Hove’s Regency Ward, where the bulk of licensed premises operate, I welcome Cllr Mary Mears’ support for rebalancing the licensing act to be more supportive of residents’ concerns (“Council concern over law” Wednesday October 13th).


However in addition to lobbying Theresa May, Cllr Mears should also speak to her colleagues on the Council’s own licensing committee who repeatedly are observed to be on panels which approve new and extended licenses in the cumulative impact area, in the face of strong objections from residents, councillors and the Police.


Indeed it was the Conservative chair of licensing who led the panel which approved extended hours for ‘Jam’ in Middle Street. This resulted in Sussex Police, for the first time ever, lodging an appeal in court against the council. I’m relieved that the ‘Jam’ case has now been resolved by the hard work of the Police licensing team who have negotiated a new, more restrictive, license.


Those of us working to address the impacts of the licensed trade in the city, including responsible venue managers, would appreciate Cllr Mears spreading the message not just to national government, but to local Tory councillors too.


Sincerely,

Cllr Jason Kitcat

Green Councillor for Regency Ward, Brighton & Hove City Council

Kings House, Grand Avenue, Hove BN3 2LS

Categories
current affairs

Why no NHS osteopathy in Brighton & Hove?

I was pleased to see a report in today’s Argus about osteopathy services on the NHS. The piece isn’t online but in essence it says a new report from the British Osteopathic Association has found that whilst NHS West Sussex referred over 1,800 patients for osteopathic treatment – no referrals were made by the NHS in Brighton & Hove nor in East Sussex.

NHS Brighton & Hove are quoted in the article saying that they provide the full range of NICE recommended treatments through their physiotherapy service. I don’t question the quality of the physiotherapists, but they are not the same as osteopaths. They operate in a similar field but with quite different techniques and approaches.

NICE guidance for lower back pain includes osteopathy. Indeed there’s a growing body of quality clinical evidence to show that osteopathy is at least as, if not more effective, than other methods for treating back pain. These include a recent meta study and the ROMANS study which found that “outcomes improved more in the osteopathy group than the usual care group” whilst osteopathy was not significantly more costly. Indeed when my daughter was born through a ventouse delivery, the hospital midwife recommended an osteopath for helping with the damage the delivery had done to her little head. Four years later and you can barely feel on her skull where the ventouse was used, but I paid for every osteopath treatment myself.

In January of this year, the Council’s Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee received a petition and a funding proposal calling for therapies including osteopathy to be made available through the local NHS. This was of great interest to me so I prepared for the item in detail including collecting abstracts of studies to cite such as those I have mentioned above.

Osteopathy clearly has a solid evidence base to back its use. However when I attempted to have this discussion the Conservative committee chair and the Chief Executive of NHS Brighton & Hove both were keen for no discussion to be held at all. Against my protests the item was not debated. The following committee meeting I tried to discuss it again or at least find out if the local NHS had done anything about the petition. Nothing.

So I applaud NHS West Sussex for looking beyond conventional medicinal disciplines in treating their residents. It would be great if other local NHS primary care trusts would, before they are abolished, set a precedent that osteopathy should be available under the NHS in their areas. There should be no argument over providing treatments backed by guidance and sound clinical studies.

UPDATE 27th October 2011:

Brighton chiropractor Matthew Bennett (of Sundial Clinics) sent me a link to an interesting case study which further supports the benefits of chiropractic, osteopathic and physiotherapy treatments – and that they end up being cheaper for the NHS too.