Panels Row css is overlapping my left column jquery menu making it unclickable

I am using Chaos tool suite (ctools) 7.x-1.1 on a Drupal 7.15 site.

On one particular Panels Page, with one row at top and then two column beneath, in a theme that has a vertical jquery menu in a column to the left (which the Panels page does not override/place), some of the jquery menu items are not clickable. I find that instead I am clicking into the panels columns, although visually they do not otherwise overlap.

There is a screen shot of the page (which is not live with this theme yet) attached.

When I look at the css, I see the following code being generated by ctools which, if I de-activate, makes the menu work correctly again:

.panels-flexible-row-15-1-inside {
padding-left: 760px;
margin-left: -760px;
padding-right: 0px;
}

Is this a bug? or a result of some flaw/conflict I have introduced?

Here is an export of the page:

$handler = new stdClass();
$handler->disabled = FALSE; /* Edit this to true to make a default handler disabled initially */
$handler->api_version = 1;
$handler->name = 'page_in_japan_page_panel_context';
$handler->task = 'page';
$handler->subtask = 'in_japan_page';
$handler->handler = 'panel_context';
$handler->weight = 0;
$handler->conf = array(
  'title' => 'Landing page',
  'no_blocks' => FALSE,
  'pipeline' => 'ipe',
  'css_id' => '',
  'css' => '',
  'contexts' => array(),
  'relationships' => array(),
);
$display = new panels_display();
$display->layout = 'flexible';
$display->layout_settings = array(
  'items' => array(
    'canvas' => array(
      'type' => 'row',
      'contains' => 'column',
      'children' => array(
        0 => 'main',
      ),
      'parent' => NULL,
    ),
    'main' => array(
      'type' => 'column',
      'width' => 100,
      'width_type' => '%',
      'children' => array(
        0 => 'main-row',
        1 => 1,
      ),
      'parent' => 'canvas',
    ),
    'main-row' => array(
      'type' => 'row',
      'contains' => 'region',
      'children' => array(
        0 => 'center',
      ),
      'parent' => 'main',
    ),
    'center' => array(
      'type' => 'region',
      'title' => 'Center',
      'width' => 100,
      'width_type' => '%',
      'parent' => 'main-row',
    ),
    1 => array(
      'type' => 'row',
      'contains' => 'region',
      'children' => array(
        0 => 'left_column',
        1 => 'right_column',
      ),
      'parent' => 'main',
      'class' => '',
    ),
    'left_column' => array(
      'type' => 'region',
      'title' => 'Left Column',
      'width' => '340',
      'width_type' => 'px',
      'parent' => '1',
      'class' => '',
    ),
    'right_column' => array(
      'type' => 'region',
      'title' => 'Right Column',
      'width' => '420',
      'width_type' => 'px',
      'parent' => '1',
      'class' => '',
    ),
  ),
);
$display->panel_settings = array(
  'style_settings' => array(
    'default' => NULL,
    'top' => NULL,
    'left' => NULL,
    'right' => NULL,
    'bottom' => NULL,
    'middle' => NULL,
    'center' => NULL,
    'main_' => NULL,
    'left_column' => NULL,
    'right_column' => NULL,
  ),
  'top' => array(
    'style' => 'default',
  ),
);
$display->cache = array();
$display->title = 'NY以外に在住の皆様へ';
$display->content = array();
$display->panels = array();
  $pane = new stdClass();
  $pane->pid = 'new-1';
  $pane->panel = 'center';
  $pane->type = 'node';
  $pane->subtype = 'node';
  $pane->shown = TRUE;
  $pane->access = array();
  $pane->configuration = array(
    'nid' => '829',
    'links' => 0,
    'leave_node_title' => 0,
    'identifier' => '',
    'build_mode' => 'full',
    'link_node_title' => 0,
    'override_title' => 1,
    'override_title_text' => '',
  );
  $pane->cache = array();
  $pane->style = array(
    'settings' => NULL,
    'style' => 'rounded_corners',
  );
  $pane->css = array();
  $pane->extras = array();
  $pane->position = 0;
  $pane->locks = array();
  $display->content['new-1'] = $pane;
  $display->panels['center'][0] = 'new-1';
  $pane = new stdClass();
  $pane->pid = 'new-2';
  $pane->panel = 'left_column';
  $pane->type = 'views';
  $pane->subtype = 'nodequeue_3';
  $pane->shown = TRUE;
  $pane->access = array();
  $pane->configuration = array(
    'override_pager_settings' => 0,
    'use_pager' => 0,
    'nodes_per_page' => '1',
    'pager_id' => '0',
    'offset' => '0',
    'more_link' => 1,
    'feed_icons' => 0,
    'panel_args' => 0,
    'link_to_view' => 1,
    'args' => '',
    'url' => '',
    'display' => 'page',
    'override_title' => 1,
    'override_title_text' => 'おしらせ',
  );
  $pane->cache = array();
  $pane->style = array(
    'settings' => NULL,
    'style' => 'rounded_corners',
  );
  $pane->css = array();
  $pane->extras = array();
  $pane->position = 0;
  $pane->locks = '';
  $display->content['new-2'] = $pane;
  $display->panels['left_column'][0] = 'new-2';
  $pane = new stdClass();
  $pane->pid = 'new-3';
  $pane->panel = 'right_column';
  $pane->type = 'node';
  $pane->subtype = 'node';
  $pane->shown = TRUE;
  $pane->access = array();
  $pane->configuration = array(
    'nid' => '1970',
    'links' => 1,
    'leave_node_title' => 0,
    'identifier' => '',
    'build_mode' => 'full',
    'link_node_title' => 0,
    'override_title' => 0,
    'override_title_text' => '',
  );
  $pane->cache = array();
  $pane->style = array(
    'settings' => NULL,
    'style' => 'rounded_corners',
  );
  $pane->css = array();
  $pane->extras = array();
  $pane->position = 0;
  $pane->locks = array();
  $display->content['new-3'] = $pane;
  $display->panels['right_column'][0] = 'new-3';
  $pane = new stdClass();
  $pane->pid = 'new-4';
  $pane->panel = 'right_column';
  $pane->type = 'node';
  $pane->subtype = 'node';
  $pane->shown = TRUE;
  $pane->access = array();
  $pane->configuration = array(
    'nid' => '95',
    'links' => 1,
    'leave_node_title' => 0,
    'identifier' => '',
    'build_mode' => 'full',
    'link_node_title' => 1,
    'override_title' => 0,
    'override_title_text' => '',
  );
  $pane->cache = array();
  $pane->style = array(
    'settings' => NULL,
    'style' => 'rounded_corners',
  );
  $pane->css = array();
  $pane->extras = array();
  $pane->position = 1;
  $pane->locks = '';
  $display->content['new-4'] = $pane;
  $display->panels['right_column'][1] = 'new-4';
$display->hide_title = PANELS_TITLE_FIXED;
$display->title_pane = '0';
$handler->conf['display'] = $display;