Categories
notes from JK

Why are Labour incapable of straightforward campaigning?

I’ve just seen the first leaflet from Labour’s by-election candidate for St Peter’s & North Laine, Tom French.

Does Tom offer any new ideas for the area or the city? No.

Does he use misleading statistics to support his candidacy? Yes!

Rather than quote figures from the last council elections, recent council by-elections in neighbouring wards or even the recent Parliamentary results in the constituency the ward is in, he comes up with a new metric… Tom aggregates the general election vote across the three constituencies (and thus includes the parts of Lewes district in Brighton Kemptown) to suggest Labour are in a close second place. If that’s how any of these elections worked – maybe, but that figure is of no relevance to anyone as it’s not restricted to the Brighton & Hove municipal boundary, it was for a different electoral arrangement and resulted in Labour winning no MPs whilst the Greens did win one.

Tom also writes that he’s “stood shoulder to shoulder with students, teachers and parents against the cuts in Higher Education” – which is intriguing given that the cuts higher education institutions in this city have experienced so far were all brought in by the Labour government.

Tom – You just can’t walk away from Labour’s record of 13 years in government nationally and over a decade on the local council.

And sadly calling Labour the opposition to the Tories is demonstrably untrue. I’ve sat in the council chamber and seen Labour vote with the Conservatives to end our committee system, award themselves additional allowances, to support health privatisation, curtail councillor speaking rights and much more.

Greens will keep putting forward positive proposals, such as for 20mph residential streets, and we’ll fight elections on the back of our ideas for the future. Let’s have a battle of ideas – that’s what would benefit this city at election times.

Categories
current affairs

Labour’s astounding hypocrisy on cuts

So word reaches me that Labour are campaigning locally to ‘stop the cuts’ that are affecting our great city.

Well I agree, we should fight unnecessary cuts (as most of them are) and campaign for the best deal possible for our city as the guillotine falls. This is exactly what Greens have been doing for a long time, whether it’s fighting privatisation, university closures or cuts to respite services. In fact almost the first thing I did on being elected in December 2007 was to have a run-in with Cllr Ken Norman over his plans to close the Vernon Gardens residential care home and day centre (which Tories steamrollered through).

Labour were never against the cuts the Tory/LibDem government are pushing through. They just wanted them next year instead of this year. A valid point if cuts must be made, as we don’t want a double-dip recession. But Greens campaigned on the fact that most of these cuts simply aren’t needed. With a rebalancing of government spending away from the military, ID cards and road building plus a reformed tax system, we could protect vital services whilst making our society fairer.

Indeed it was the Labour government, before they were turfed out, which began the cuts to our local educational institutions. As a result Sussex university want to close some degrees and fire staff, Brighton university are having to retrench losing the valued ARTHOUSE and associated staff contracts and City College Brighton, who a few years ago thought they were about to develop a gleaming new campus, are now cutting back after the funding they counted on just didn’t appear despite repeated government promises. Furthermore childcare facilities at both universities have been put at threat.

It was the Labour government that had been giving Brighton & Hove City Council some of the lowest block grants (a key source of funding) in the country, year after year. That the Tories have not spent this wisely is also true e.g. £100,000 on trimming verges more often.

Labour also presided over the skyrocketing of top civil service pay along with spiralling IT outsourcing contracts.

Labour created the regulatory system which allowed banks to get ‘too big to fail’ and it was Labour that chose to run up a huge deficit to bail them out. It was Labour who used PFI deals to push debt off the government books. International accountancy standards now require most of these to be, quite rightly, brought back into the government accounts and so we’ll see the government finances look even worse than the previous sanitised picture Brown and Darling painted.

So, yes, let’s stop the cuts. But until Labour renounce their policies which brought us here and began the cuts, they are opportunistic hypocrites of the first order to try to make political capital of their ‘opposition’ to said cuts.

Categories
food

Bob Blumer’s Beetrot Salad Recipe

Bob Blumer (a.k.a The Surreal Gourmet) came into my cooking life thanks to my cousin Sophie who gave me his wonderful book “Off The Eaten Path“.

I’ve always enjoyed beetroots but I know that many don’t so when I saw a recipe called “Gee, your beet smells terrific” I had to give it a try. It all comes down to roasting the beets which is a brilliant idea. It makes complete sense given how beets are packed with natural sugars, yet I’ve never seen this suggested anywhere before. Everyone who has this salad is stunned when I say the beets were roasted – they taste good.

There are so many clever flavour combinations packed in here so I haven’t modified his recipe much, just tweaked a few quantities.

Ingredients

3 medium size beets (tops removed)

3 teaspoons walnut oil

2 teaspoons good balsamic vinegar

3 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice

2 teaspoons fresh tarragon (finely chopped, stems discarded)

50g strong, crumbly French goats cheese (diced into 1/8-inch cubes)

3 tablespoons toasted walnuts (to toast just pop nuts in the oven until starting to brown and get them out quick as they’ll burn in a blink)

1-2 Belgian endives

salt & black pepper to taste

  • Place the beetroots whole, unskinned on a rack to bake at 200 C for 1.5-2 hours. Use foil to catch the drippings below. (Increase time if beets are big)
  • Remove beetroots from the oven to cool. Don’t worry about the exterior blackening, the inside is wonderfully tender and sweet.
  • Once cool peel with your hands and then finely dice the beetroots.
  • Combine all the remaining ingredients in a bowl adding nuts and cheese last before gently mixing.
  • For fancy presentation or as an entree spoon the mixture into whole washed endive leaves. Alternatively use just 1 endive and chop the leaves into 2 inch lengths and mix into the salad.

Note: All Amazon links for books will pay a commission to me if you purchase the book.

Categories
notes from JK

Seth Godin’s “Linchpin” – go read it!

I’ve read it twice to make sure. There’s no doubt in my mind that Seth Godin’s “Linchpin” is a powerful and important book for anyone in the world of work. In fact anyone who wants to contribute in any way – whether entrepreneur, employee or volunteer.

A key theme in the book is fear (aka ‘the resistance’) and how it holds people back from doing what they know they are capable of achieving. This is a topic many motivational speakers and writers touch on. I had forgotten this until yesterday when attending a little send-off do for Keith Taylor who has just stepped down from being a councillor (after 11 years!) to become an MEP.

Without any thought I had worn a t-shirt I’d received a few years back when attending Anthony Robbins’ “Unleash the power within” event. I’d been given the ticket as a gift, and had gone deeply skeptical, but ended up totally into it. The t-shirt simply reads:

Anthony Robbins

the firewalk experience

fear into power

And so a few people had asked me if I’d seen or done the firewalk. Yes, I’d done the firewalk, I replied without any thought (because I had done it) and they all became very curious and interested about the details of how it’s achieved. I talked about the focus and preparation needed.

As I cycled home I realised that this was a reflection of the power of fear. I had overcome fear (and deep skepticism) to do the firewalk a few years ago and reflecting on it, I did still feel empowered by that memory. If I can do that, surely my goals are all worth a try!

Godin cleverly reminds us all of such moments in his book. He says we have all been geniuses at some point in our lives – we’ve solved a problem, got ourselves out of a fix, improvised, entertained and surprised ourselves. This, he argues, is what we need to enable ourselves to do more often. Rather than assuming one is either ‘a genius’ or just an ‘ordinary person’, we need to aspire to more moments of genius. This is a useful change in perspective when most of us just don’t feel like a genius, that’s a label for ‘special people’, which is a self-defeating narrative for the 99.99% of people not publicly declared a genius.

Godin’s book has also had me reflecting on my on aborted doctorate. I spent five years diving in and out of it, under intense psychological pressure (of my own making) to finish the darn thing. I’ve realised that the reason I was unable to stop sooner was my concern about other people’s views. In particularl my supervisor, and doctoral classmates. We had been in this together and they had given time to this endeavour too. I knew I could do the PhD, I just didn’t want to.

That might sound odd, but I realised that neither the process nor the result of doing the doctorate held any interest for me any longer, though I could quite clearly see what I had to do to complete them. Very clearly in fact, as my wife was nearing the end of her ten year doctoral voyage.

So a fear, of other people’s opinions, was holding me back from doing the right thing. I overcame it and felt marvellously liberated by withdrawing from the doctoral programme. Instead I was able to focus my energies on politics, where time and passion are now being poured!

I can’t recommend “Linchpin” strongly enough. The book, especially the sections on education and management, tie in strongly with Sir Ken Robinson and Tom Chapell’s themes which I recently blogged.

UPDATE: Seth Godin has, for the sheer hell of it, announced a ‘Linchpin Day’ so I’ve set up a meetup in Brighton & Hove for 7.30pm on June 14th, join us!

Note: All Amazon links for books will pay a commission to me if you purchase the book.

Categories
food

Grandmother’s Classic French Dressing

My father’s mother was a wonderful cook. She revelled in cooking delicious French and English foods. Sunday lunches tended to centre around divinely roasted joints with superb gravies. She also loved to set all sorts of pleasures in aspic, asparagus being a favourite since the days when she used to have them fresh from her own garden.

There’s no doubt she took a huge amount of pride in her cooking and so there was more than a hint of rivalry with my mother. Though I can’t be sure I think more than once she would note down recipes ever so slightly incomplete so that her version would always taste better. She wouldn’t have been the first cook to jealously guard her secrets!

One famous family story is of the first Christmas my mother took on cooking duties. Buried in the kitchen for two days my mother wanted to be absolutely certain that she impressed. Being French-Canadian she naturally decided to cook a giant turkey.  This was before turkey had become as popular in the UK as it is now. So after some research a beast was procured which had been selected with some considerable deliberation from a specialist farm.

On Christmas day my mother was exhausted but proud as she emerged from the kitchen with the huge, golden turkey and placed it on a table laden with stuffing and home-made cranberry sauce. It was at this point that my grandmother made it known that she only ate goose for Christmas.UN peacekeepers nearly had to be called in at this juncture.

Goose is still popular in France for Christmas but I’ve not yet had the opportunity to taste it and I certainly never had the courage to ask my mother to cook it.

Whatever my mother was cooking I wanted to be involved in the preparation. I don’t know if this began because my hunger drove me to be as close as possible to the food or out of genuine curiosity. One of the first things I was permitted to make was salad dressing as it involved no dangerous implements.

My father taught me the dressing his mother had taught him. I fairly sure my grandmother showed me herself a few times also. In fact it’s less of a recipe and more a rule of thumb which leaves great flexibility depending on what will be in the salad and your mood.

The only way to mix this sort of dressing is by vigourous shaking so keep an old jam jar for this purpose.

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil

Vinegar (balsamic, sherry, cider)

Dijon mustard

Brown sugar or honey

  • The basic dressing consists of a 3:1 ratio of olive oil to vinegar. This needs to be played with a bit if the vinegar is sharp. I tend to use balsamic or cider vinegar but sherry or red wine vinegars are good too.
  • For every unit of vinegar you want one teaspoon of Dijon mustard. I’ve noticed that some mustards are getting more vinegary so you may need to make adjustments.
  • For every unit of vinegar you also want 1.5-2 teaspoons of sugar or honey depending on your taste.
  • Season with salt and pepper, then shake well.
  • My grandmother often liked to add a dash of Worcester sauce. Freshly crushed garlic is also very welcome in this dressing.
Categories
notes from JK

The election that was

This is a post I’ve kept putting off because I thought my thoughts would get more clear with time. They haven’t, they’re still a jumble. So apologies, but this is how they’ve come out.

This election campaign was filled with exhausting hard work, lots of late nights, hours spent writing and designing leaflets and hundreds of conversations.

It included reading lots and lots of blog posts, probably thousands of tweets and lots of time on iPlayer trying to watch the good bits I’d missed.

Working on Caroline’s campaign management team wasn’t just exhilirating because of the prize in sight, it was because I got to spend time with some extraordinary people.

The TV debates were overall a hugely negative change – they narrowed the terms of the political discourse and they gave excessive focus to just three parties out of all those standing across the country.

Election night was nailbiting and… long, very long. But the result was worth it – the sense of elation was incredible. Nearly 40 years after our party was founded, we have finally broken into the long-closed Westminster club. I’m not sure who took it, but this video at the count declaration, captures some sense of the moment.

Gathering on the seafront outside the Brighton Centre with a couple hundred of green supporters at 7am to toast our victory was an unexpected addition to the morning.

Going out onto New Road to help with Caroline’s first ‘street meet’ a few hours later was remarkable. We saw incredible support from everyone we met, even as we were surrounded by a swarm of cameras and journalists.

Reading the hundreds of congratulatory emails to Caroline and the Green Party from right across the world has shown what this breakthrough has meant to people spread far beyond what I could have imagined.

And finally, seeing a fraction of the invitations and casework coming in to Caroline, has shown to me how much hope the people of Brighton have put in getting more from their MP than ever before. Caroline and the Green Party will do everything they can to deliver on those hopes.

Categories
notes from JK

People of Brighton, we can wake up on Friday to a Green MP

All the trends indicate that this Thursday, if you vote Green in Brighton Pavilion, you’ll wake up on Friday to a Green MP.

Vote Green because you believe in our policies, because you want to change politics and because you want to see more diverse voices in Parliament. Vote Green because you know Brighton can do better.

And if that doesn’t convince you, how about Queen’s Brian May!?

This has been an extraordinary election to take part in. Aside from partisanship, there have been some incredible grassroots projects including voteforpolicies.org.uk, The Straight Choice and Democracy Club. More power to their elbows – they’ll surely be plenty of post-match analysis from the data they’ve collected.

I shall try to update via Twitter over the next 48 hours, I doubt a blog will emerge before Sunday or Monday.

Categories
notes from JK

Making the case for electoral reform from scratch

Electoral reform is very much on people’s minds as they struggle on how to vote and reflect on the prospects of a hung parliament. David Cameron has defended the current ‘first past the post’ system by saying ” I want us to keep the current system that enables you to throw a government out of office.”

Which is a deeply untruthful answer, as Cameron must surely know. He faces a battle to swing enough seats to win a majority in the face of the voting system’s Labour bias. In 2005 the vast majority of voters didn’t vote for Labour, yet Labour were returned to power with a majority in parliament. Not exactly the ‘throwing out’ Cameron suggests.

But rather than getting bogged down in debates about strong governments, coalitions and the experiences of Germany, Italy or Spain; let’s go back to first principles.

As a developed society we have evolved public services, benefits, a legal system and taxation to fund these. How these are run, what they do and how they work are important decisions which affect us all.

So that we can spend most of time living our lives, doing our work and caring for our families, we have chosen to delegate the decision-making to representatives. We generally agree that the best way to choose people to represent us is by an election where every citizen has one vote. The principle is that our preferences can all be heard equally because we want our chosen representatives to be representative of us. But the electoral system we use  (how votes are translated into representatives) affects the results.

Surely if 15% of people vote for party X and 20% vote for party Y then the percentage of representatives from each of those parties must be as close as possible to those percentages. That’s the most fair and representative outcome. And we know countries like Sweden, Norway and Germany with fair electoral systems have good stable governments and a healthy diversity of views in a mature political culture.

That’s why we need electoral reform – for fairer election results, a more diverse parliament and a better politics.

Categories
voting

India’s e-voting machines cracked

Rop Gonggrijp is someone always worth keeping an eye on. He was instrumental in revealing the problems with the Nedap voting machines used in Ireland and the Netherlands.

How he’s part of a team who have publicly demonstrated serious security flaws with India’s electronic voting machines. Time and time again India has been cited as a good example – but the reality was their systems lacked independent scrutiny. Now that expert scrutiny has been brought to bear, problems have been found.

How many more countries have to make the expensive mistake of rolling out e-voting before we all learn that computers and voting are just not well suited for each other.

Read more, and watch the great video at http://www.indiaevm.org

Rop’s post explaining some of the back story

VeTA – a new group campaigning against India’s e-voting, welcome!

(via Ed Felten’s Freedom to Tinker)

Categories
technology voting

Upcoming events in Brighton & Cambridge

Two events coming up soon which will be of interest to digital rights type people:

  • Debating the Digital Economy Act Thur 29th April
    I’ll be one of the contributors at this debate, organised by Wired Sussex here in Brighton.
  • Internet Voting: Threat or Menace Tue 27th April
    Jeremy Epstein from SRI International is over in the UK and will be giving a talk at Cambridge Uni’s Computer Lab Security Seminar series. I did one of these a few years ago and it was highly enjoyable – the audience were engaged and very generous with their interest.