Politics
Belfast, broken borders and the evasions of our elites
At around half past 10 on Monday night, 8 June, on a residential street in north Belfast, a man in his thirties allegedly pinned another man to the ground and began stabbing him. He was stopped by three members of the public, one of them carrying a hurling stick, who dragged him clear. The victim, a man in his forties, lost his left eye. His right eye sustained serious damage. He has deep lacerations to his face and back. He remains in serious condition in hospital. A kitchen knife was recovered.
The man now charged on suspicion of attempted murder is Hadi Alodid, 30 years old, of Duncairn Avenue, Belfast. He is also charged with possession of a blade in a public place and with threatening to kill a female NHS radiographer while he was being treated for a hand injury following his arrest. The court heard that while receiving that treatment, he told police: ‘I killed someone, I don’t know if they’re dead.’ Judge Steven Keown refused bail on Wednesday, finding that ‘the risks were far too great and unmanageable with any bail conditions’.
Alodid’s route to Belfast is on the public record. He flew from Sudan to Paris and from there to Dublin. On 10 February 2023, he boarded a bus from Dublin to Belfast, applied for asylum, and was granted leave to remain until 2028. He had no (known) criminal record and appeared on no police database. When Jon Boutcher, Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable, contacted his counterpart in counter-terrorism, nothing came back. The attack is not, at present, being treated as terrorism. The motive is yet to be established. The investigation continues.
So too does the journey from Paris to Dublin to Belfast, for anyone minded to take it. It is worth understanding why this journey was taken, because understanding is exactly what the governing class is hoping the public will not acquire.
When the UK left the European Union, it lost participation in the Dublin III Regulation, the mechanism that had previously allowed it to return asylum seekers to whichever EU member state through which they had first passed. After Brexit, the UK introduced replacement inadmissibility rules under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which allow the state to refuse a claimant’s asylum request if he or she has a connection to a safe third country or passed through one before arriving in the UK. But these rules apply to Great Britain and not to Northern Ireland, where a Belfast High Court ruling in 2024 barred key provisions of the UK’s post-Brexit immigration laws. The Common Travel Area, the arrangement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland that predates both states and was preserved through Brexit as a structural requirement of the Good Friday Agreement, means that a person crossing from the Republic into Northern Ireland faces no passport check, no border control and no immigration officer.
This is not an oversight. It is the consciously constructed legal architecture, known to every government in the chain. And none has dared address the problems it poses, on the grounds that doing so might complicate the arrangements around the peace process.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Carla Lockhart asked in the Commons on Tuesday what action the UK government is taking to prevent abuse of the immigration system via the land border with the Republic. Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, confirmed what was already known: that any foreign national who abuses the hospitality of this country to commit crimes should be in no doubt of the government’s determination to deport them, and that net migration is down 82 per cent from its peak under the previous government. That, of course, is an answer to a different question.
Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn, and PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher attend a press conference in Belfast, 10 June 2026.
Benn subsequently offered, in good faith and apparently without embarrassment, a comment about the prospect of using someone’s history and background to assess future risk:
‘Questioning the suspect, seeking to find out more about him and the circumstances, it doesn’t necessarily follow that someone’s previous history is going to enable you to know if they are going to do something in the future. And therefore it is very hard to operate a system in those circumstances which attempts to anticipate what someone might do.’
This prompts one to reach for an argument of Thomas Sowell. There are no migrants in the abstract, Sowell observed. There are only specific people from specific places with specific histories, specific beliefs and specific characteristics. The generalisation ‘migrants’ is not a policy instrument. It is a rhetorical convenience for avoiding the actual policies that would have to be designed if you were dealing with real people. Benn is not refusing to generalise – he is refusing to particularise. He is arguing that because you cannot know in advance what a specific individual will do, the only defensible conclusion is that prior history, background, ideology and behaviour offer no useful information whatsoever. The system, he implies, simply cannot anticipate anything of note. We are, apparently, operating national border control much like a roulette wheel.
This is not merely wrong. It is the precise negation of what every risk assessment, every parole-board hearing, every terrorism analyst, every child-protection social worker and every insurance actuary does for a living. Risk assessment is the applied science of inferring future probability from prior evidence. The counter-extremism Prevent programme, which the government funds to the tune of tens of millions of pounds annually, is predicated entirely on the premise that prior indicators – ideology, association, behaviour, radicalisation pathway – are meaningful predictors of future violence. Following Benn’s logic, Prevent should be abolished immediately, because its entire operational rationale is the thing he just said is impossible.
The government funds a counter-extremism programme built on the premise that prior behaviour predicts future violence. And yet it sends its secretary of state for Northern Ireland to argue on television that prior behaviour cannot meaningfully predict future violence as a reason for declining to scrutinise how a specific individual came to be in Belfast before allegedly attempting to decapitate someone. One of these positions is true. The Prevent position is closer to the truth, which is why Benn’s broadcast remarks are not a serious argument. They’re a holding measure, a way of filling the airtime between the event and the moment when the news cycle obliges by moving on.
Now consider what happened simultaneously at Wednesday’s press conference. PSNI chief Boutcher, appealing for calm and promising law enforcement against the rioters, said that those involved in the disorder would have their images plastered everywhere. It is a legitimate deterrence instrument, and images of rioters do result in identification and prosecution. The observation that the institution declining to characterise the perpetrator of the original attack is energetically committed to naming and imaging the people who responded badly to it will not, however, have escaped the notice of the people being told to go home and be calm. The asymmetry is visible. And visible things tend to be noticed.
This is not an argument for outing defendants before trial. Sub judice rules are sensible and the presumption of innocence is not negotiable. It is an observation about where the state deploys its energy and its language. The prosecutorial machinery has historically moved with speed and purpose against such rioters, just as it did in 2024 after the Southport attack unrest. Yet it tends to be much more cautious when it comes to the events that have prompted the riots. That’s when the authorities throw out the usual lines: the motive is yet to be established, the investigation continues, please be mindful of what you share online. This pattern, swift action against one form of disorder and studied caution around the other.
Protesters in stand-off with police in Glengormley, north of Belfast, Northern Ireland, 10 June 2026.
The Prevent dimension deserves attention. Prevent is the British government’s programme for identifying and supporting individuals considered vulnerable to radicalisation. William Shawcross’s 2023 Independent Review of Prevent found multiple issues: that it had drifted from adequately confronting Islamist extremism; that it was characterised by institutional timidity on the subject; and that Islamist terrorism remained the primary domestic terrorist threat. Indeed, Islamist terrorism accounted for approximately two-thirds of attacks since 2018, three-quarters of MI5’s caseload and 64 per cent of those in custody for terrorism-connected offences. The review recommended reorientation toward the primary threat.
The government accepted several of these recommendations. The acceptance was followed, as usual, by a considerable number of further discussions about how the acceptance might be implemented without causing too much disruption to existing arrangements.
Alodid was not, the PSNI chief Boutcher confirmed, known to Prevent. He was not known to any national-security database. He was, in other words, exactly the type of individual that Prevent’s acknowledged gap in non-networked, non-referred coverage is designed to miss. This was a man who had arrived from Sudan, a nation in the grip of an active civil war in which Islamist militias – designated as terrorist organisations by the US State Department as recently as March of this year – were being absorbed into the Sudanese Armed Forces’ fighting ranks. It is entirely reasonable to ask whether he should have been given leave to remain and why he was not properly vetted. Benn’s answer, that previous history doesn’t tell you what someone will do, is rejected daily by his own government’s counter-terrorism strategy.
Then there is the question of what the word ‘refugee’ is being required to carry in this discussion, and it is carrying considerably more than it can bear.
Refugee status is a legal designation, not a moral quality. It is a determination made by a caseworker, on the basis of evidence available at the time of claim, that a person faces a well-founded fear of persecution in their country of origin. It says nothing about ideology. It says nothing about mental health. It says nothing about criminal propensity or the individual’s relationship to political violence. These are orthogonal categories. A person can be a genuine refugee, genuinely fleeing genuine persecution and also pose a serious risk to British citizens. When determining whether someone is a refugee, caseworkers assess the persecution claim. The security and public-protection assessment is a separate exercise, conducted separately, resourced separately, and in the case of an individual arriving via an unmonitored land border under the Common Travel Area, conducted with whatever information the Home Office happens to have – which, in this case, was apparently nothing.
The governing class and its media interlocutors have fused refugee status and individual safety assessment into a single category. To define someone as a refugee is to declare they pose no threat. This is not an honest synthesis. It is a category error with a political function. The function is to ensure that the concrete question – whether this individual was adequately assessed before being granted leave to remain and whether the route through which he arrived constitutes a structural gap in public protection – cannot be posed without triggering the response that you are calling for the abolition of the asylum system. Nobody serious is calling for that. The question is whether the asylum system, as it currently exists, is doing the full job that protection of the public requires. Benn’s claim, that prior history doesn’t tell you what someone will do, is not an answer to that question. It is a device for making the question sound unanswerable so that it need not be answered.
As Sowell taught us, there are no migrants in the abstract. There is no refugee in the abstract. The abstract refugee is a politically useful figure. He is stateless and suffering, the exemplar of everything the liberal conscience requires one to defend. The abstract refugee cannot be scrutinised without implicating the liberal conscience. The concrete individual here, suspect Hadi Alodid, is a specific man, from a specific country, with a specific recent history. He arrived via a specific route that specific legal decisions have left unmonitored. He was granted leave to remain in September 2023 on the basis of a specific assessment by a specific caseworker. His particular case desperately needs to be scrutinised. Scrutiny is not an attack on the abstract refugee. It is how you protect the next person. The governing class prefers the abstract refugee, because the abstract refugee requires only sentiment. The concrete individual requires accountability.
‘Progressive’ journalist Mehdi Hasan’s appearance on BBC’s Newsnight on Tuesday evening deserves credit for its internal consistency. He argued that this is a story of far-right actors exploiting a hideous crime, amplified by Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson. The danger, he continued, is to minority communities, and that anyone drawing wider conclusions from the attack is doing the demagogues’ work.
This is a partial argument presented as a total one. The partial truth is real. On Tuesday evening, homes burned, families were forced to flee and a Turkish barber’s shop in Ballyclare was attacked. These are genuine harms visited on innocent people. All of that is true. But none of it is an argument about whether the system that produced the conditions for the original attack is functioning adequately.
The existence of disreputable or thuggish people who exploit a failure does not determine whether the failure is real. If it did, institutional failure could never be examined, because there is always, in any charged situation, someone willing to exploit the examination for bad purposes. The governing class has understood this and used it consistently in response to incidents similar to the one in Belfast this week. Produce a Musk. Point at the mob. Claim that anyone not pointing at the mob is in league with it. The examination of the actual problem at hand is indefinitely deferred, which is the point.
The history that makes Hasan’s position untenable is not a history he disputes. It is a history he declines to address. The grooming-gangs scandal in Rotherham illustrates the point. The 2015 Jay Report documented over 1,400 victims of organised sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. The Casey Review of 2015 found Rotherham council ‘in denial’. Casey’s Rapid Audit of June 2025 found that institutions had, across two decades, avoided discussing perpetrator ethnicity ‘for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions or causing community cohesion problems’. It found that one local authority had replaced a plan targeting specific perpetrators with a ‘broad commitment’ to tackling exploitation ‘in its varied manifestations across the district’s communities’, and that police were told by councils to avoid publicising convictions ‘due to fear of raising tensions’.
This was a deliberate institutional choice, made in the face of known evidence, to prioritise what officials called ‘community cohesion’ over the protection of children. ‘Community cohesion’ here means the management of political embarrassment at the expense of the people being harmed. It is a bureaucratic alibi, not a social good.
The language around Belfast – that the motive is yet to be established, that prior history doesn’t necessarily tell you what someone will do, that the investigation must be allowed to proceed – is not identical to the Rotherham mechanism. But it runs on the same fuel and it serves the same interest. Hasan is running the same machine under a different brand, and the machine is running fine.
The same PSNI chief constable who will plaster rioters’ images everywhere is the head of a service whose intelligence operations, as disclosed in recent Investigatory Powers Tribunal proceedings, included routine six-monthly trawls of journalists’ phone data. The same secretary of state who told the Commons that those abusing the hospitality of this country will be deported is the minister responsible for an immigration architecture with a functioning open door in it. The same prime minister who found the attack sickening took the knee in 2020 and is now managing a premiership whose departure timetable is a matter of active parliamentary negotiation. The people moving quickly are moving quickly against the people who reacted badly to the failure. The people responsible for the failure are explaining, at measured length, why the failure was in the nature of things. Why previous history cannot tell you what someone will do, and why it is very hard to operate a system in these circumstances.
Many of us, for different reasons, find this less than fully satisfying. The religion of calm has its sacraments and its clergy. Its central liturgy is the substitution of the emotional register for the analytical one. Their emotivist lexicon consists of sickening, harrowing, deeply shocking, deeply concerning. Its founding doctrine is that concern about the immigration system is contamination, that the person asking the structural question stands in proximity to the mob and must prove they are not by not asking it. Its clerisy are the Benns and the Hasans and the Boutchers and the Starmers. All mostly reasonable people, managing unreasonable circumstances they helped to construct. All gesturing toward the next calm that will precede the next event on the next street.
Three brave people with a hurling stick ran toward such an event this week. Yet the governing class continues to look the other way.
Owen Shapell is a PhD researcher in social sciences.
The UK government’s decision to ban under-16s from major social media platforms is a significant moment.
It reflects what many parents already know: the online world is exposing children to content and experiences they simply are not equipped to deal with.
But we should be careful not to mistake a step forward for a complete solution.
A social media ban is a bit like putting a lock on the front door while leaving the back door wide open. It will help some children. It will certainly make access more difficult.
But it does not address the wider reality of how young people use technology.
Children are not only spending their time on Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. They are on WhatsApp. They are on gaming platforms. They are using AI tools. They are communicating through dozens of apps and services that fall outside of the traditional definition of social media.
Harmful content does not magically disappear because one category of app is restricted.
The other uncomfortable truth is that bans tend to work best on children who are already willing to follow the rules. The children most at risk are often the ones most likely to find workarounds, borrow devices, create alternative accounts or simply move to less regulated platforms.
I am not making an argument against action. I am making an argument for the action to go further.
For years, parents have been told that many of the protections they want are technically impossible. We have been told that harmful content cannot be identified. That explicit images cannot be blocked. That meaningful parental controls are unrealistic. The reality is very different.
The technology already exists. At the startup I co-founded, we have built systems that can block explicit content, prevent the sharing of nude images, and give parents meaningful oversight of a child’s digital experience across their entire device, not just one or two apps.
If a startup can build these protections, it is difficult to accept that some of the largest technology companies in the world cannot.
The biggest risk today is not that the government has gone too far. It is that parents are given the impression that the problem has now been solved.
It has not. Legislation will take time. Enforcement will take time. Legal challenges will take time. Meanwhile, millions of children will continue using smartphones every day. Parents need help now, not several years from now.
A social media ban may be part of the answer. But the long-term solution is technology that is designed to protect children from harm wherever that harm appears, not just on a list of banned apps.
The good news is that we do not need to invent that technology. We simply need to use it.
George Bevis is the co-founder of online child safety app Safetymode.com and founder of Tide.
Donald Trump has accused Benjamin Netanyahu of having “no fucking judgment” as he launched another foul-mouthed attack on the Israeli prime minister.
The US president said an Israel’s attack on Beirut on Sunday had “pissed me off very much”.
He was speaking amid fears that the Israeli strikes could scupper a deal to end the Iran war at the last minute.
Speaking to Axios, Trump insisted the bombing had only delayed the agreement “by a few hours” and that it was still due to be signed on Sunday.
Trump said: “Why did Bibi have to do a fucking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know that.”
Lebanese officials said three people had been killed in Sunday’s attack, which Israel said was on a command centre run by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was in retaliation for “Hezbollah’s launch of aerial targets toward Israeli territory” earlier on Sunday.
The latest Trump-Netanyahu spat comes less than a fortnight after the president reportedly called the Israeli leader “fucking crazy” in a phone call.
It came after Israel resumed its aerial bombardment of Lebanon.
A source told Axios that Trump told Netanyahu: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
Another source said Trump was “pissed” on the phone call and at one point shouted at Netanyahu: “What the fuck are you doing?”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
The Italian beach of Punta Molentis in Villasimìus has introduced a controversial new ban on beach umbrellas for some.
The sandy spot, located on Sardinia’s South-East coast, costs €10 (£8.64, as of the time of writing) to enter.
Once you’re in, only people older than 65 or with a child under 10 can pitch a beach umbrella at the site – and there’s a max limit of one per eligible person or group, The Guardian reports.
Why was the rule introduced?
It comes alongside a slew of other changes which are designed to protect the area’s ecosystem.
In 2025, the site faced wildfires that left cars burnt out and forced beachgoers to flee by boat, per the BBC.
“The ecosystem of Punta Molentis is among the most precious in our territory, but also among the most fragile,” the council explained.
“The fires of 2025 and exceptional marine weather events have reduced the capacity of the sandy shore and put habitat and biodiversity to a severe test.
“Because of this, it is necessary to limit human impact and ensure the protection of this heritage for future generations.”
As a result of the disaster and the risk for future fires, authorities have decided to limit the number of beach visitors to 150 at a time (pre-booking is needed to secure a spot). You can’t park more than 70 cars a day nearby, either.
Opening hours run from 8am-9pm, and you aren’t allowed to leave towels, umbrellas, tents, or chairs overnight.
The official notice also asks people to check the beach’s fire risk level before visiting, too.
Italians have *thoughts* about the change
Under the governing body’s Facebook post addressing these changes, one person wrote: “I advise the mayor and the entire council that voted for this outrage to visit a dermatologist to learn about the risks of skin cancer to which they are exposing us to profit from those who want to enjoy the sea at Punta Molentis”.
Another commented, “If [we] pay 20 euros for entry and parking, who are you to ban umbrellas?”
And on a separate post on the same page, yet another site user said: “To protect the beach, the only solution is to close it and make it inaccessible for a few years, to allow flora and fauna to reclaim their place. This is just a sneaky way to hand it over to the rich”.
They joked, “Do we need a black market to rent out children and the elderly?”
Joël Reland explains the new ‘UKICE staircase’, which outlines the options available to the UK should it seek a different form of relationship with the EU, and the trade-offs they imply.
Ten years after the referendum that David Cameron promised would settle the EU question “once and for all”, we’re still talking about Brexit. And by ‘we’, I don’t just mean the team here at UKICE towers.
Across the political spectrum, few seem satisfied with the status quo. Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves want more ‘alignment’. The Lib Dems want a customs union. Many backbench Labour MPs want to be like Switzerland. Wes Streeting wants to rejoin “one day”. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch both say they would rip up Keir Starmer’s EU ‘reset’ and leave the ECHR.
How to make sense of it all? To help, we have just published a new report, replete with a brand-new staircase (a modern, improved version of the Barnier original). It sets out the viable options for the UK should it seek a different model of EU relationship, and the trade-offs they imply. The staircase rests on a clear internal logic: each ‘step’ necessitates greater alignment with EU law (and other obligations) and, in return, is likely to lead to greater economic dividends. Let’s walk you through it.
The TCA
We are currently placed on the ‘TCA’ step. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) which Boris Johnson negotiated provides for tariff-free trade with the EU at the cost of paperwork to prove goods qualify and other frictions like customs checks and regulatory compliance costs. It has ended free movement of people with the EU and gives the UK (except for Northern Ireland) the freedom to set its own regulations in most areas. The consensus is that the TCA has reduced UK GDP by 2-6%: broadly in line with pre-Brexit forecasts.
TCA plus
The government is seeking to add a handful of supplementary agreements onto the TCA, deepening economic, security and cultural cooperation (as set out in last year’s ‘Common Understanding’). Almost all of these agreements are still subject to negotiation but, if completed, could add up to half a percent to UK GDP by 2040. The economic agreements entail UK ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU law (meaning being subject to EU rules, as they evolve, with no formal say over them) in the areas of animal and plant health, carbon pricing and electricity. There would be no return to free movement but there could be some increase in EU migration to the UK from a ‘youth experience’ scheme.
TCA minus
Both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch say they will reverse the Common Understanding and take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The former would undo the potential ‘TCA plus’ economic gains. The latter would likely lead the EU to suspend the TCA, putting the UK-EU trading relationship onto ‘no deal’ terms which pre-Brexit forecasts suggest could reduce UK GDP by a further 3%. Reform and the Conservatives argue that leaving the ECHR will enable the UK to ‘secure our borders’ and ‘stop the boats’ by stopping migrants from appealing deportation decisions. But in practice very few extradition decisions are successfully challenged in this way, and exiting the ECHR would make it harder to cooperate with EU countries on small boat crossings.
Customs union
Both the Lib Dems and Greens support a UK-EU customs union. This would see the UK and EU set common tariffs on goods imports and, in return, UK-EU trade would always be tariff-free, with traders no longer needing to complete complex paperwork to prove the national origin of goods. This would remove a significant source of trade friction, and could boost UK GDP by 0.5-1%, with manufacturing sectors feeling the biggest benefits. But the UK would lose a large degree of control over trade policy – it could not offer countries lower tariff rates than the EU and, if the EU imposed major tariffs on others, the UK would have to do likewise. An EU Commissioner suggests the EU is “open-minded” and “ready to engage” about the idea of a customs union.
Swiss model
Some in the Labour Party have suggested that the UK could seek a ‘Swiss-style’ deal with the EU. Switzerland is integrated into the single market in a range of, mostly, goods sectors – and has to ‘dynamically align’ with relevant EU law for the privilege. It also has free movement of people and pays into the EU budget (around £330m/year for 2030-2036). This deeper integration brings bigger economic gains (an estimated 1-2% GDP boost) while maintaining autonomy in services sectors like financial services and AI. It is not certain that the EU would want to engage in talks on a Swiss-style deal: as they have historically found it difficult to manage and it risks derailing the ratification process for the updated EU-Swiss agreement. A senior EU figures has said a Swiss deal is “possible, but it takes time”.
EEA (single market)
Joining the European Economic Area (EEA) would mean full participation in the EU single market. That brings greater economic gains (an estimated 2-3% GDP boost) but requires greater dynamic alignment and budget contributions than the Swiss deal, while also accepting free movement. There are still some barriers to trade because the EEA agreement does not include a customs union. Joining the EEA would be complex: the UK would most likely first have to join EFTA, which the member states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland) might not welcome, and then seek to negotiate an EEA accession treaty. Maintaining widespread dynamic alignment also takes a lot of administrative work. EU officials have suggested EEA membership as a plausible model of UK association.
Rejoin
The UK could apply to become an EU member state again. It is reasonable to think this would reverse most of the economic damage Brexit has done. A successful application would mean being bound by all EU treaties and the UK would, likely, have to do without the rebate on its budget contribution which it used to enjoy and make an at least rhetorical commitment to join the euro. Unlike with the Swiss and EEA deals, the UK would have much greater decision-making powers over the EU law to which it is subject, including full voting rights, and the EU would be obliged to consider a UK application according to pre-set criteria. Among voters, rejoining (with a referendum) is the most popular of all options for the future relationship.
By Joël Reland, Senior Researcher, UK in a Changing Europe.
Apologies in advance, but there’s a pretty gross reason our pillowcases turn yellow.
The colour change is usually due to a buildup of our sweat, skin oils, hair oils, and drool – and parts of these deposits, like proteins and fats, yellow with age. (Rarely, clear sweat changes hue after contact with bacteria in a process called pseudochromhidrosis.)
Depending on how discoloured your pillowcase has become, a regular wash might not cut through this residue.
Luckily, though, some experts say there’s a two-ingredient solution to the problem.
Baking soda and water could help
Panda London said that a “mixture of baking soda and water” can help to banish stubborn stains.
They reccomend turning it into a paste and applying it to your case before washing. Begin with a small patch to test whether it works on your material.
Southern Living recommended a similar method.
Baking soda, they explained, can help to lift stains and boost the effectiveness of your detergent later on.
Spot-treat affected areas with a baking soda and water paste, they suggest, before rubbing off the mixture before washing.
When you do chuck the offending item in your machine, make sure to add 110-135g of baking soda in your drum alongside your usual detergents.
The Spruce said you should wait until your paste is completely dry before removing it and putting it in the wash.
They also point out that baking soda “softens clothes and boosts the detergent’s power,” and can even help to keep your washing machine drum clean.
Lastly, speaking to Ideal Homes, Petya Holevich, a cleaning expert at Fantastic Services, said it could help to improve the smell of your pillowcase, too: “Baking soda acts as a natural deodoriser and mild pillow stain remover”.
What if I have really severe yellow stains on my pillowcase?
For more severe stains, oxygen bleach may be needed.
This is a “safer alternative to chlorine bleach for whitening,” Holevitch said.
Soak your clothes in a mixture containing the product for at least an hour before washing.
However, there are exceptions: silk, wool, and fabric with leather strips or wooden buttons can suffer in the solution.
Make sure you check the care label on your pillowcase first.
Keir Starmer will announce that under-16s will be banned from accessing the biggest social media platforms as part of plans to “keep children safe online”.
The prime minister, who had previously been opposed to such a ban, will use a Downing Street press conference on Monday morning to unveil the plans.
He is expected to say that the UK will follow Australia’s example in raising the minimum age to 16 for sites including TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat and Reddit.
More than 90% of parents backed the move in a government consultation.
Starmer said: “How we keep kids safe online is one of the biggest debates of our time. As a dad, I know every parent wants their child to grow up safe and happy.
“This is a choice about whose side we’re on: families across the country, or a status quo that isn’t working.
“People rightly expect action, and this government will always stand up for parents and put children first.
“That’s why we will call time on a system that’s failing our kids and take bold action to give every child the best possible start in life.”
But the father of a teenager who took her own life after viewing harmful content online accused the prime minister of “playing politics” by rushing the announcement amid speculation about his future.
Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died in 2017 aged just 14, said the PM’s behaviour was “deplorable”.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, he said: “In opposition, Keir Starmer promised to tighten up the online safety world by regulating better.
“Early last year, father to father, I met with him briefly and he was very concerned – and he promised me he would look into effective solutions to deal with this problem.
“But as we sit here on the verge of this announcement, it seems that he’s not kept either of those promises.”
He said the prime minister had “promised a group of bereaved parents” an announcement could be expected by the summer recess, which falls in mid-July, “so he’s rushed that forward for some reason”.
“I can’t think of a reason other than a political reason… if he’s playing politics, what he’s doing is gambling with young people’s lives – and I find that deplorable,” he said.
Starmer is also expected to announce a social media curfew for 16 and 17-year-olds after 8.30pm.
Critics pointed out that Labour also want to lower the voting age to 16.
Liberal Democrat education, children and families spokesperson Munira Wilson said: “The government appears to have cobbled together a hodgepodge of social media restrictions which don’t keep children safe, nor hold big tech’s feet to the fire.
“The government must heed the lessons from Australia and stand up to big tech with a credible set of measures that genuinely protects our children, rather than rushing through a half-baked policy just to secure a political legacy.”
Tory shadow education secretary Laura Trott said: “It’s shameful that it’s taken the Prime Minister’s job to be on the line for the government to finally U-turn and ban social media for under 16s.
“Three times Labour voted against a ban, failing to stand up to Big Tech and protect children from the extreme content they are exposed to every day.”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his administration has reached a peace deal with Iran more than three months after the US and Israel launched a disastrous war that has put intense strain on the world’s energy supply, and left the Iranian regime strengthened and emboldened.
The agreement constitutes the most notable diplomatic development since the strikes on Iran began on February 28.
American and Israeli forces decapitated the Iranian government by reportedly acting on information that many of the country’s top leaders would be in the same place at the same time.
The Iranian regime, however, has managed to sustain its grip on power, even in the wake of mass protests that were put down with ruthless violence earlier this year.
After some initial confusion among Trump’s own Republican Party as to what the US military action was ultimately meant to accomplish, the president began repeating that Iran could not be permitted to develop a nuclear weapon, and that the Strait of Hormuz needed to be reopened to commercial shipping, as it was before the war began.
He has also said that Iran’s nuclear “dust” — or the remnants of nuclear materials that were targeted in US airstrikes last summer — must also be destroyed. The issue of how the country will dispose of its highly enriched uranium has long been a point of contention.
Fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz is expected to alleviate some of the pressure on global fuel markets, which have seen major spikes in oil and gas prices due to the closure of the waterway.
Prior to the Iran war, 20% of the global oil and gas supply moved through the Strait.
Iran effectively shut it down by threatening to attack ships that attempted to cross, leaving some crews stranded on ships waiting for the conflict to resolve.
Casualty estimates from the war vary, with the Israel Defense Forces estimating some 6,000 Iranians have been killed. The US officially counts 13 deaths on its side.
News of a previous possible deal between the US and Iran drew pushback in May from some Senate Republicans, who favored a harsher approach toward Iran.
Trump had signalled he would not be rushed into an agreement. He repeatedly pushed back on the idea that the upcoming midterms were putting political pressure on him, due to rising prices that could be directly tied back to his decision to launch the war.
“I don’t care about the midterms,” Trump said bluntly at one point. At another, when asked whether he shared Americans’ concerns over the high cost of living, he was even more abrasive.
“The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran — they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing — we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all,” he said.
He doubled down on that sentiment last week, saying, “I love the inflation.”
Politics
Politics Home Article | PM Announces Under-16 Social Media Ban In “Big Moment For Our Country”
(Alamy)
2 min read
Keir Starmer has confirmed that the government will ban social media for under-16s.
In a Downing Street press conference on Monday morning, the Prime Minister said the Australia-style ban is “not something I do lightly” and isn’t “cost-free”.
However, the Prime Minister added: “I will not be prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”
Starmer said he would now “move at speed” to introduce the necessary legislation with the aim of the ban coming into effect “in the early part of next year”.
While Starmer was believed to be sceptical about hardline measures like Australia’s ban initially, he told reporters this morning that he had reached this decision “having looked at the evidence, having gone through the consultation, having looked at what happened in other countries, having listened to parents, listened hard”.
The proposals announced today will include restrictions on specific platforms for under-16s, including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but also restrictions on gaming services, live streaming platforms, and stranger communication.
Children will not be banned from accessing messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal.
The government is also expected to make further announcements about night-time social media curfews for 16-and 17-year-olds in the coming weeks.
Speaking this morning, the PM said he did not accept the argument that an under-16 social media ban is not worthwhile because some children will get around it, saying it would be like opposing drinking laws because underage people sometimes drink alcohol.
“This is not something I do lightly, and I will not present it as cost-free, as if social media has brought no benefits to young people, because clearly that is wrong, but government is always about choices, and it’s clear to me that a full ban is the right choice,” Starmer said.
“Social media is making children unhappy. It’s making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health, exposing them to content that is dangerous, because that is what grabs the attention. It is designed to be addictive.”
Starmer said that the Online Safety Act meant the government had an understanding of how to apply age verification, and powers introduced under the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, will allow them to “now move at pace”, and “adapt as technology changes”.
Justin Trudeau has responded to his critics after watching his girlfriend Katy Perry performing at the opening ceremony of the World Cup in the USA, rather than supporting his native Canada during their first match.
The former Canadian prime minister and Grammy-nominated pop singer have been an item for the better part of a year now, with Trudeau in the audience as she performed her 143 album cut Wonder on the pitch on Friday.
However, not everyone was happy that Canada’s former leader didn’t turn up to support his home country.
On Sunday, he responded to a post on X pointing out that “on a day that Canada and the United States both opened their campaigns at the World Cup, Justin Trudeau opted to watch Team USA, where his girlfriend Katy Perry was performing in the opening ceremony”.
“Sometimes supportive boyfriend duties call,” he claimed, but insisted: “You know who I’m rooting for to take the Cup.”
The couple had jaws dropping the world over last summer, when it was first reported in the press that they were in the early stages of dating.
More recently, he was pictured looking loved-up with Katy on the red carpet at the premiere of her upcoming concert film during the Tribeca Film Festival.
Katy was previously married to the comedian Russell Brand, and shares a five-year-old daughter, Daisy, with her former long-term partner Orlando Bloom.
Justin, meanwhile, had been single for around two and a half years before he and his new famous girlfriend began going out, following the announcement in August 2023 that he and his wife of 18 years, Sophie Grégoire, had separated.
He and his ex share three children, sons 18-year-old Xavier, 16-year-old Ella-Grace and 11-year-old Hadrien.
For the second year in a row, President Donald Trump commemorated his birthday with a bizarre spectacle in Washington DC.
After an inclement weather delay, Trump’s UFC extravaganza – which also marked America’s 250th birthday – kicked off on Sunday evening with a bout between two featherweight fighters who made their entrances from the White House.
The opening underscored the strangeness of the gathering, which marked the rare use of the White House for a professional sports competition and for a function hosted by a private company.
Trump has faced criticism for promoting such events at the White House and for backing an exhibition that’s expected to benefit numerous commercial interests, including the UFC and Paramount.
Additionally, the fight has drawn scrutiny, given the emphasis Trump placed on it while grappling with other major issues, including a struggling economy and the effort to finalise a deal to end the US war on Iran.
Just hours before the main card of “UFC Freedom 250” was set to begin, Trump said that an agreement with Iran was “now complete,” though it isn’t expected to be formally signed until Friday.
According to a Reuters report, France also pushed back the G7 summit to allow Trump to attend the cage fight on the White House lawn.
Last year, Trump held a military parade for his birthday, which featured tanks and rocket launchers rolling down the streets of the capital.
Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images
Sunday’s fight also included large displays, including the construction of a massive 92-foot, 600-ton fighting ring called “The Claw” that towered over the White House on the South Lawn.
That venue, which was covered in flashing red, white and blue lights, sat roughly 4,000 guests on Sunday evening. Service members wearing colonial attire could also be seen lining the entrance from the White House to the “Octagon,” the trademark eight-sided cage that UFC fighters use.
“The South Lawn has served as one of the most important and ceremonial spaces in American history,” a UFC commentator said as part of a streaming broadcast on Paramount+. “Now, the Octagon is part of that history.”
Win McNamee via Getty Images
All told, there were seven mixed martial arts match-ups, including a face-off between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje for the lightweight title.
Much of the audience was comprised of military service members and Trump allies, including Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has frequented past UFC matches. Trump was also seen watching the fight alongside members of his family, Vice President JD Vance and UFC President Dana White, a longtime supporter.
The UFC exhibition has been nearly a year in the making and underscores Trump’s deep ties with the mixed martial arts company and its leadership.
Trump first floated the idea in July 2025 during a kickoff for activities commemorating America’s 250th birthday. He’s also been friends with White, who has repeatedly backed his presidential runs and welcomed him ringside at past matches, for years. According to PBS, White also played a role in influencing podcaster Joe Rogan, who was once a UFC color commentator, to throw his backing behind Trump.
More recently, Trump’s brokerage account purchased shares in TKO Holdings, UFC’s parent company, raising questions about whether he could personally see gains from holding the fight on the White House lawn. The Trump organization has said the president had no control over the transaction, and the White House has also denied any conflict of interest.
Branding for various companies was omnipresent at the fight on Sunday, with logos adorning the venue itself and one bout sponsored by Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
The staging of the cage match at the White House was also previously met with widespread opposition.
Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images
It recently drew a court challenge from the Public Integrity Project, which described the fight as “corrupt” and argued that the administration needed congressional approval for construction related to the UFC event. Last week, a judge ultimately ruled that the fight could proceed.
According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 16% of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to use the White House grounds for this event.
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