Makloubeh

 Age, infirmity and other reasons make it impractical for me to join in most positive action on behalf of Gaza. So I had the idea of joining the resistance by culinary means, and cooking Palestinian at regular intervals.

The first dish is makloubeh (other spellings are available), which I made last night. A bit of a challenge as I can usually make things that taste nice, but my presentational skills are pre-school, and the look of a makloubeh is quite important. Anyway, I made one that held up, and here it is.

Top down view of a makloubeh. Onions and tomatoes on top with rice. Cauliflower, potatoes and chicken are hidden underneath.

Footnote: my oldest sister died yesterday (aged 81 so she had a good innings). She lived on the other side of the world, but we communicated regularly by email. In our final exchange, which lasted until only a few days before her death, I told her of my plans for makloubeh and she gave me some very good advice, without which it would not look nearly so good. It's nice to think she made a difference right up to the end.

The recipe I followed was from Palestine In A Dish.

The only problem I can foresee with this is that there are far too many Palestinian sweets and pastries for my waistline.

A non-wonk’s guide to liberalism

 First published in LibDemVoice 6th March 2025.

A while ago someone was looking for what they called a brief non-wonk’s guide to liberalism. In a fit of activism I wrote one. Once I had fleshed it out, I was surprised by the centrality the idea of debate had to my entire presentation.

The logic is quite simple. Liberalism has at its centre a broad brush of principle – that each should be free to do whatever they want provided they do not harm others in exercising that freedom. There is relatively little else that is central to the principles. That means that every strategy, position, rule or practice has to be worked out in the light of current circumstances to align as closely as possible to that principle – which means that all those practices, strategies, etc, have to be worked out anew again and again. (“When the circumstances change, I change my mind.”) That means we need to be able to talk to each other continuously and honestly, and yet sensitively and with respect.

It takes quite a lot of self discipline to do that. No doubt many would argue that we have lost that ability – social media, echo chambers, the weaponisation of lies, the practice of bullshit. I do not believe that; the ability to listen and speak respectfully has to be learned anew by each generation. And that is perhaps more important for us than for other political parties because it is so central to the practice of liberalism.

Arguably, we in the Liberal Democrats are not very good at it (though we’re certainly no worse than other parties). Debate descends into argument too quickly and too often. Perhaps we need to revive the practice of teaching the skills of debate as a central part of being a Liberal Democrat, so that we can converse most productively both among ourselves and in other fora. Perhaps there could be a new section on the Campaign Hub. (Yes, I’m being a bit mischievous, but only a bit.)

I planned the non-wonk’s guide to be an evolving document, a kind of permanent work in progress, but it took me a long while to get back to it and make the improvements suggested by some of its first readers. It can be found in this folder:

https://app.box.com/s/cz7o5qx5j5k3kbpb0qkkilcw4rzblg0y

I will welcome comments and suggestions on both the thoughts above and the guide itself.