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The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
There is a dangerous disconnect: on Gaza, politics no longer speaks for the people
It was meant to be a cosy conversation about cooking and new motherhood. But BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour took an unexpectedly bleak turn on Thursday morning, when the chef Yasmin Khan turned suddenly tearful in the middle of promoting her new cookbook, saying she couldn't talk about her own struggles to breastfeed without mentioning the mothers in Gaza unable to provide for their literally starving babies. It was a striking illustration of how far this medieval horror has broken through, bleeding across the everyday lives even of people who don't usually follow politics. You don't have to know anything about the Middle East to understand what those newspaper pictures of emaciated children, with their drawn little faces and heartbreakingly visible ribs, mean. This is what famine looks like, right down to the return of Bob Geldof, begging the world to act just as he did 40 years ago at Live Aid. Except this time it's no natural disaster, but what the World Health Organization calls a man-made mass starvation: the chillingly avoidable consequence of an aid system forcing people to choose between risking their lives for a bag of flour, or dying for lack of one. More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking food in Gaza since May, according to the UN. Médecins Sans Frontières says even its staff, lucky enough still to be earning salaries, are now going hungry: there's almost nothing left to buy in the markets. The newswire Agence France-Presse spoke of watching helplessly as its Palestinian freelancers, who have risked everything to get news out of Gaza when foreign journalists can't get in, become too weak to work. Meanwhile, back in Britain, people who want to see arrests for war crimes read instead about clampdowns on pro-Palestine activists. That ministers have been quick to empathise with the frustrations of a very different crowd protesting at the housing of asylum seekers in hotels merely adds salt to the wounds. Labour MPs are openly desperate now for their government to do something more than issue dramatically worded threats of future action that never quite materialises. Even cabinet ministers are publicly lobbying for the formal recognition of Palestinian statehood while (in the words of Wes Streeting, who could easily lose his marginal Ilford North seat over this war) there's still a Palestine left. Recognition would be a largely symbolic act of solidarity, which in itself would do little to fill hungry bellies in Gaza. But ministers' problem is that there seems increasingly little reason for not doing it now: the longstanding argument that this prize should be saved for the right moment, to help unlock progress towards a two-state solution, made more sense when the two-state dream wasn't being actively crushed in front of us. But perhaps the real plea here is for Keir Starmer to recognise the country he actually leads. After the horrors of the 7 October 2023 massacre, there was broad acceptance that Israel could not be expected simply to sit back and do nothing. Even a year into what was by then a highly divisive war, YouGov found that more than half of Britons still felt Israel had been justified in going into Gaza. But critically, only 14% felt its use of force there was proportionate. Sympathy has drained away as Israel's war of self-defence began to resemble first one of vengeance, and then something darker. In language no former Israeli prime minister uses lightly, Ehud Olmert has described a proposal to corral Palestinians into a settlement on the ruins of Rafah and prevent them leaving as in effect a 'concentration camp'. More than half of Britons now favour financial sanctions like those slapped on prominent Russians over Ukraine, or suspending arms sales. These arguments are now mainstream, cross-party – the veteran Tory MPs Kit Malthouse and Edward Leigh made passionate cases in parliament this week for recognising Palestine – and driven not by the kind of creeping antisemitism Starmer was quite right to confront in his own party, but by what people see every morning, scrolling through their phones. David Lammy's rhetoric is already about as strong as a foreign secretary's can get – this week he condemned Israel's 'inhumane' and 'dangerous' new aid system, and what he called 'settler terrorism' in the West Bank – and many Labour MPs suspect he'd privately like to go further than the sanctions and restrictions on arms sales he listed. But Downing Street is said to be wary of getting ahead of Donald Trump at a crucial stage in ceasefire negotiations (with Israel's parliament going into summer recess, relieving some pressure on the minority government of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, it's hoped there is a window for a deal). Britain has always argued that our influence over Israel is best magnified by synchronising efforts with the US, and though the chaos of this White House makes that harder, Trump's is still the only voice Netanyahu really hears. Yet while everyone prays for that ceasefire deal to be done, a dangerous gap is opening in Britain between parliament and people. A year into power, Starmer is increasingly adept at foreign policy, but much less so at handling the emotive domestic blowback from it. Without seeing the intelligence reports crossing the desk of the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, I wouldn't second-guess her decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group. A breach of security at RAF Brize Norton was never going to be taken lightly. But, inevitably, the process of police officers trying to figure out in real time what elderly vicars can or can't now say in public about Palestine has caused its share of farce and fury. After a retired teacher was arrested for allegedly holding a sign featuring a Private Eye cartoon about the proscription, West Yorkshire police issued an unusual statement saying they were sorry if he was 'unhappy with the circumstances' of his arrest. As with this summer's other prospective powder keg, the protests building up outside some asylum seeker accommodation, doubtless everyone is learning as they go. There is, however, only so much policing can do to resolve what are really political conflicts, born in both cases of frustration with what both sets of protesters (in their very different ways) see as political failure to act. To hold together all these volatile, mutually hostile parts of a fractured society through a hot and angry summer will be head-spinningly complicated, a daunting ask even for an experienced government. Yet that's the nature of the job Starmer applied for last July. A year on, we must all hope he is equal to it. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
There is a dangerous disconnect: on Gaza, politics no longer speaks for the people
It was meant to be a cosy conversation about cooking and new motherhood. But BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour took an unexpectedly bleak turn on Thursday morning, when the chef Yasmin Khan turned suddenly tearful in the middle of promoting her new cookbook, saying she couldn't talk about her own struggles to breastfeed without mentioning the mothers in Gaza unable to provide for their literally starving babies. It was a striking illustration of how far this medieval horror has broken through, bleeding across the everyday lives even of people who don't usually follow politics. You don't have to know anything about the Middle East to understand what those newspaper pictures of emaciated children, with their drawn little faces and heartbreakingly visible ribs, mean. This is what famine looks like, right down to the return of Bob Geldof, begging the world to act just as he did 40 years ago at Live Aid. Except this time it's no natural disaster, but what the World Health Organization calls a man-made mass starvation: the chillingly avoidable consequence of an aid system forcing people to choose between risking their lives for a bag of flour, or dying for lack of one. More than 1,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking food in Gaza since May, according to the UN. Médecins Sans Frontières says even its staff, lucky enough still to be earning salaries, are now going hungry: there's almost nothing left to buy in the markets. The newswire Agence France-Presse spoke of watching helplessly as its Palestinian freelancers, who have risked everything to get news out of Gaza when foreign journalists can't get in, become too weak to work. Meanwhile, back in Britain, people who want to see arrests for war crimes read instead about clampdowns on pro-Palestine activists. That ministers have been quick to empathise with the frustrations of a very different crowd protesting at the housing of asylum seekers in hotels merely adds salt to the wounds. Labour MPs are openly desperate now for their government to do something more than issue dramatically worded threats of future action that never quite materialises. Even cabinet ministers are publicly lobbying for the formal recognition of Palestinian statehood while (in the words of Wes Streeting, who could easily lose his marginal Ilford North constituency over this war) there's still a Palestine left. Recognition would be a largely symbolic act of solidarity, which in itself would do little to fill hungry bellies in Gaza. But ministers' problem is that there seems increasingly little reason for not doing it now: the longstanding argument that this prize should be saved for the right moment, to help unlock progress towards a two-state solution, made more sense when the two-state dream wasn't being actively crushed in front of us. But perhaps the real plea here is for Keir Starmer to recognise the country he actually leads. After the horrors of the 7 October 2023 massacre, there was broad acceptance that Israel could not be expected simply to sit back and do nothing. Even a year into what was by then a highly divisive war, YouGov found that more than half of Britons still felt Israel had been justified in going into Gaza. But critically, only 14% felt its use of force there was proportionate. Sympathy has drained away as Israel's war of self-defence began to resemble first one of vengeance, and then something darker. In language no former Israeli prime minister uses lightly, Ehud Olmert has described a proposal to corral Palestinians into a settlement on the ruins of Rafah and prevent them leaving as in effect a 'concentration camp'. More than half of Britons now favour financial sanctions like those slapped on prominent Russians over Ukraine, or suspending arms sales. These arguments are now mainstream, cross-party – the veteran Tory MPs Kit Malthouse and Edward Leigh made passionate cases in parliament this week for recognising Palestine – and driven not by the kind of creeping antisemitism Starmer was quite right to confront in his own party, but by what people see every morning, scrolling through their phones. David Lammy's rhetoric is already about as strong as a foreign secretary's can get – this week he condemned Israel's 'inhumane' and 'dangerous' new aid system, and what he called 'settler terrorism' in the West Bank – and many Labour MPs suspect he'd privately like to go further than the sanctions and restrictions on arms sales he listed. But Downing Street is said to be wary of getting ahead of Donald Trump at a crucial stage in ceasefire negotiations (with Israel's parliament going into summer recess, relieving some pressure on the minority government of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, it's hoped there is a window for a deal). Britain has always argued that our influence over Israel is best magnified by synchronising efforts with the US, and though the chaos of this White House makes that harder, Trump's is still the only voice Netanyahu really hears. Yet while everyone prays for that ceasefire deal to be done, a dangerous gap is opening in Britain between parliament and people. A year into power, Starmer is increasingly adept at foreign policy, but much less so at handling the emotive domestic blowback from it. Without seeing the intelligence reports crossing the desk of the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, I wouldn't second-guess her decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group. A breach of security at RAF Brize Norton was never going to be taken lightly. But, inevitably, the process of police officers trying to figure out in real time what elderly vicars can or can't now say in public about Palestine has caused its share of farce and fury. After a retired teacher was arrested for allegedly holding a sign featuring a Private Eye cartoon about the proscription, West Yorkshire police issued an unusual statement saying they were sorry if he was 'unhappy with the circumstances' of his arrest. As with this summer's other prospective powder keg, the protests building up outside some asylum seeker accommodation, doubtless everyone is learning as they go. There is, however, only so much policing can do to resolve what are really political conflicts, born in both cases of frustration with what both sets of protesters (in their very different ways) see as political failure to act. To hold together all these volatile, mutually hostile parts of a fractured society through a hot and angry summer will be head-spinningly complicated, a daunting ask even for an experienced government. Yet that's the nature of the job Starmer applied for last July. A year on, we must all hope he is equal to it. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
BreakingNews.ie
16-07-2025
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
Yasmin Khan's halloumi lasagne
'Lasagne is one of my ultimate comfort foods, and in the case of this particular lasagne, it's not hard to understand why,' says Yasmin Khan. 'Soft layers of pasta and béchamel are interspersed with a rich tomato sauce laden with hearty Mediterranean vegetables such as squash, courgette, pepper, and aubergine, and then topped with thin slices of halloumi cheese for an irresistible appeal. Advertisement 'I serve it with a crisp salad and some garlic bread. This freezes well, so it's great for batch-cooking.' Halloumi lasagne Yasmin Khan's halloumi lasagne (Jonathan Gregson/PA) Ingredients: (Serves 4-6) 550g peeled and deseeded butternut squash, cut into small pieces 450g courgettes, cut into small pieces 1 red pepper, cut into small pieces 2 medium aubergines, cut into small pieces Olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 4 fat garlic cloves, finely grated 500ml passata 1tsp balsamic vinegar 2tsp dried oregano 1 teaspoon sweet paprika ½tsp Aleppo pepper or other mild chilli flakes ¼tsp ground cinnamon 120ml water 12 lasagne sheets Salt and freshly ground black pepper For the béchamel sauce 75g butter 80g plain flour 700ml milk ¼tsp ground white pepper Pinch ground nutmeg 50g finely grated Parmesan cheese Salt Toppings 200g block halloumi, very thinly sliced 25g finely grated Parmesan cheese Yasmin Khan's halloumi lasagne (Jonathan Gregson/PA) Method: 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas Mark 4. Combine the squash, courgettes, red pepper, and aubergines on a large baking sheet (use two sheets if needed), drizzle with 3 tablespoons olive oil, season with a generous pinch of salt, and mix well with your hands. Roast for 30 minutes, or until soft. 2. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 12 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. stir in the passata, vinegar, oregano, paprika, chilli flakes, and cinnamon and cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. Advertisement 3. Add the roasted vegetables and season with ¾ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon black pepper. Add the water to loosen the mixture and mix well. 4. To make the béchamel, combine the butter and flour in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring to form a paste. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring often. Add the milk, white pepper, and nutmeg and whisk for 1 to 2 minutes, until the sauce is thick and smooth. Stir in the 50g Parmesan and ¼ teaspoon salt. 5. Now begin layering. Spoon one-third of the vegetable mixture into a 2.6 litre glass baking dish and cover with one-third of the lasagne sheets in a single layer. Top with one-third of the béchamel. Repeat with two more layers each of vegetables, pasta, and béchamel. Top the lasagne with the halloumi and the 25g Parmesan. 6. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 25 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown. Let stand for 10 minutes to allow the filling to settle before cutting the lasagne. Advertisement (Bloomsbury Publishing/PA) Sabzi: Fresh Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day by Yasmin Khan. Photography by Jonathan Gregson. Available now.
BBC News
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- BBC News
Plans for CCTV and panic buttons in Crawley taxis
CCTV and panic buttons could be coming to licensed Hackney carriages and private hire vehicles in part of West Borough Council has opened a public consultation on proposed safety upgrades for taxis to improve passenger and driver identification signage is also under review to ensure clearer visibility and consultation runs until 11 August and invites input from residents, drivers and statutory bodies. The proposed changes aim to align Crawley's licensing framework with national best practices and statutory guidance, while addressing local concerns around safety. Under the new measures, all licensed vehicles would be required to install CCTV systems capable of audio and visual recording. Panic buttons for both drivers and passengers would trigger recording in the event of an incident, offering an added layer of Yasmin Khan, cabinet member for public protection, said: "Public safety is at the heart of our licensing regime. "We want everyone – whether they're a passenger, driver, or operator – to feel confident and secure when using or working in our licensed vehicles. "This consultation is an important step in ensuring our policies support public safety and reflect the needs of our community."The council is encouraging everyone to take part in the consultation.
BBC News
06-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Crawley Tilgate Park visitors asked for views on dog lead rules
Visitors to a Crawley park are being asked for their views on rules about dogs being on leads.A Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) has been in place in areas of Tilgate Park since 2022, and Crawley Borough Council intends to renew it for a further three PSPO means all dogs must be kept on a lead around Tilgate lake, the park's main lawn, peace garden and the golf course (excluding the perimeter path) at all member for public protection, Yasmin Khan, said the council wanted to ensure the park was a safe place for residents and visitors to enjoy. Since the introduction of the PSPO, she added there had been an "immediate reduction in dog-on-dog attacks in the park and there have been no reported incidents of wildlife deaths, including cygnets, swans or deer".The council wants to renew the order before it expires later in the year, and Councillor Khan encouraged local residents and visitors to share their thoughts in the dogs are exempt from the order and dogs can remain off the lead throughout the rest of the dogs are permitted in the children's not obeying the order can be asked to stop, and council officers can issue fixed penalty notices with the option to prosecute in court if tickets are not consultation runs until 19 June.
