Politics
Iran foreign minister Araghchi says no truce unless Israel leaves Lebanon
Iran foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has responded to Israel’s attempts to reject Donald Trump’s supposed ceasefire ‘memorandum of understanding‘ with Iran. Araghchi warned Israel – and Trump – that there is no prospect of any agreement to end the illegal US-Israel war unless Israel gets out of Lebanon completely:
The end of the war will not be complete without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied in Lebanon. Any military attack by Israel on Lebanon and the continued occupation of Lebanese territories from now on, in our opinion, is a violation of the MoU.
Araghchi continues to warn Israel that any attacks on Beirut will be punished by heavy missile and drone bombardment of the northern occupation. Israel continues to slaughter civilians in southern Lebanon while the occupation military takes a pounding from ‘first-person view’ drones.
Iran are in control
The ‘MOU’, even if the Iranians agree to it, has sent the US Israel lobby into a meltdown with Israel-firsters accusing Trump of surrendering to Iran.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
In today’s world, where news cycles have shrunk to seconds and social media has become the primary source of content, the role of quality journalism has undergone fundamental changes. Digital journalism now faces an unprecedented challenge: how to maintain speed of publication without sacrificing accuracy. In the midst of global information noise, the ability to properly verify information has become a necessary condition for the survival of independent media.
The Evolution of Fact-Checking in the Digital Age
Traditional verification methods based on personal contacts and official requests are now being supplemented by complex technological processes. The problem is that fake news and misinformation spread like wildfire, often outpacing official rebuttals. Modern journalists are forced to work in a state of “constant doubt,” where every piece of data is subjected to rigorous analysis.
To maintain a high level of information accuracy, newsrooms implement strict protocols. These protocols involve checking a speaker’s words and conducting technical audits of information’s digital footprint. It’s important to understand that fact-checking is a continuous process that accompanies a story at every stage of its creation.
Methodology and Journalistic Standards
Despite all changes in technology, ethical principles and related journalistic standards endure. It is crucial to achieve as much impartiality as possible when presenting information to the reader. Therefore, you can’t observe media ethics without cross-checking all the data you use and making sure you have three or more independent sources for each bit of it.
The verification process in modern newsrooms typically looks like this:
- Primary source identification and reliability assessment.
- Technical analysis of photo and video metadata.
- Cross-referencing obtained information with public records.
- Confirming event geolocation via satellite imagery.
- Contextualizing the data by means of consulting experts.
This approach minimizes the risk of spreading false news and busts your publication’s source credibility appropriately in your readers’ minds.
Digital Investigation Tools and OSINT
Amidst all the new additions to journalistic workflows, the incorporation of open-source intelligence (OSINT) definitely stands out. It is no longer possible to imagine investigative journalism without the comprehensive all-round analysis of assorted public information, such as social networks, CCTV footage, or open data records.
It is, of course, worth noting that in-depth digital research requires special sets of tools. Some data should really only be accessed anonymously for safety reasons, for example if the article you’re writing requires mining so-called darknet websites for information. Then there is all the data that is region-locked. Any professional should be familiar with the technical solutions that aid in these cases. For example, when confidentiality is needed to analyze foreign databases or avoid blocks, researchers prefer to buy SOCKS5 proxy, which provides a stable and secure connection when working with sensitive information.
Digital investigations today are impossible without mastery of reverse image search tools and social graph analysis. Journalists examine the digital footprint of every online source to ensure an account isn’t a bot or created specifically to spread disinformation.
Verifying Visual Content
When everyone with a smartphone camera is a potential witness and everyone with an AI video generation app is a potential disrupter, you have to be very careful with visual evidence. The methods used in modern news verification are rather varied, and many of them only a decade ago would have looked like something out of a sci-fi show.
Journalists analyze shadows in photos to determine the time of day. They also check weather conditions for a given day using archived meteorological data and match landscapes in videos with terrain maps. The information verification process includes checking whether an image has been edited or created using artificial intelligence. Understanding how image-processing algorithms work has become a mandatory requirement for those involved in news reporting.
Working with Public Records and Data
Access to public records has become the foundation of quality investigations. Journalists analyze financial reports, court archives, and corporate documents. This allows them to uncover hidden connections and conflicts of interest that cannot be found through simple interviews.
Effective information verification requires a systematic approach:
- Tracing asset ownership history through government databases.
- Analyzing official declarations and comparing them with actual expenditures.
- Monitoring government procurement for corrupt schemes.
- Using specialized software to process large datasets.
A proper approach ensures that reporting is based on facts, not speculation. This is critically important for maintaining an independent media outlet’s reputation.
Community-Sourced Fact-Checking
Recent years saw the rise of communities and official organizations who deal in fact-checking as a trade. These are the people who establish lines of communication with the newsroom, have their own databases of sources, and are the first to chase every important leak. The cooperation between these groups, journalists, and OSINTers helps strengthen industry-wide standards when it comes to ethical, objective, trustworthy reporting.
Verification is a collective responsibility. When journalists share methods and tools, it raises overall media literacy in society. It’s important that readers understand how information made it to a publication’s pages and what steps were taken to confirm it.
Psychological Aspects and Cognitive Biases
Working on information verification is both a technical and a psychological process. Journalists must be aware of their own cognitive biases, such as confirmation bias — where a person subconsciously seeks out facts that support their viewpoint while actively ignoring contradictory data.
Professional discipline requires setting aside emotions and approaching every source with the same level of skepticism. This is especially important when covering conflicts or political crises, where manipulating public opinion becomes a primary goal for many participants.
The Future of Verification in Media
Deepfake technologies have been with us for some time, but the recent rise in AI development has truly empowered the people behind them. Now, the web is teeming with videos that look very real despite being created with nothing but clever prompts, often in a matter of minutes. That presents extra fact-checking challenges that the industry is currently seeking solutions for.
In the nearest future, we can expect to see the emergence of automated credibility monitoring systems for digital journalism to rely on. However, even with those on hand, we’ll still need real people with their inquisitive minds and moral compasses. Critical thinking and the ability to ask the right questions is more critical than ever in the current tumultuous landscape.
Conclusion
In the modern digital age, the fight against misinformation continues to be an uphill battle. However, a lot of the tools available today also enable daring OSINT escapades to a previously unthinkable degree. Armed with rigid ethical standards and flexible digital tools, a journalist can expose the truth and deliver it to their readers.
This week, the government announced a social-media ban for under-16s in the UK. It is set to come into effect by spring next year.
While UK prime minister Keir Starmer insists nine out of 10 parents support it, the ban has not met with unanimous praise. Ian Russell, whose daughter Mollie took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide content online, has accused Starmer of ‘political opportunism’.
Given how shallow and performative Starmer’s justification for the ban has been, it’s hard to disagree with Russell. The prime minister’s claim that social-media platforms stop ‘children doing their homework, reading, playing with their friends outside, [and] going to bed at a decent hour’ betrays a profound ignorance of just how much childhood has changed in recent decades, long before the surge of social-media use in the 2010s.
In truth, much of the harm to children, from their retreat indoors to their isolation, now being attributed to social media, began with the rise of safetyist culture during the 1990s. The state was happy to sanction the portrayal of the outside world as a dangerous, risky place. The rise of ‘stranger danger’ awareness campaigns made parents reluctant to allow their children to play outside long before TikTok. As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue in The Coddling of the American Mind, social-media sites are only one side of the coin. Yes, young people today are more risk-averse and, as a result, less resilient than previous generations. But society has done just as much to confine children to their bedrooms as social media.
When I was a teenager in the late 2010s, social media could indeed be a ‘Wild West’ of strange and often unwanted content. But social-media sites also gave teenagers access to things that adult society wasn’t offering. They gave a platform for children to be free, to explore new communities and outlets, to seek out others with the same interests and passions. And they did so when physical spaces were often cut off or heavily supervised. This was particularly important during the Covid lockdowns, when the same politicians now railing against social media’s impact on the young did everything they could to keep a generation of children locked in their homes.
A social-media ban will only exacerbate young teens’ frustration over their lack of independence. It will be experienced as a loss of control they felt they had over an area of their own lives. The freedom and the space to make mistakes in real life, just as much as the online world, are important for young people. Without it, they can’t learn life lessons, be held responsible or make amends. To become independent, they need to be given the space to make decisions that have consequences in the world around them – to learn that they are part of something bigger than themselves.
That isn’t to say we need to romanticise social media. For some young people, the algorithmic echo chambers can lead to spirals of insecurity. In many ways, social-media platforms have reinforced the worst aspects of modern childhood: pressures of educational achievement and expectations of conformity lead to early adultification, while opportunities, responsibilities and freedoms in the outside world decline.
But the crux of the issue for young people growing up online is not the social-media platforms themselves. Rather, it is the prevailing culture of moral relativism and weakened adult authority. Young people lack the framework, which once would have been provided by older generations, to make sense of the intensely globalised, politicised and polarised content online.
What this speaks to is not so much the dangerous power of Big Tech, but the loss of intergenerational knowledge and communication between parents and children. Parental authority has been outsourced to so-called experts, and community experience and values have been eroded by the preoccupation with cosmopolitan norms. Parents and trusted adults have been warned against giving guidance and teaching lessons to their kids due to their allegedly outdated understanding of the world and the prejudices they may have. No wonder, then, that children have become prisoners to everything they see and hear online.
For a political class bereft of principle, social-media platforms have become a convenient bogeyman. We witnessed this in April’s Clapham unrest, when hundreds of young people wreaked havoc on the streets. This was clear evidence of a profound breakdown in parenting and policing – yet social-media platforms, particularly TikTok, were blamed as the source of the problem. Young people may have wilfully broken the rules, but the bigger issue is that the adults in the room rarely try to enforce them.
Starmer’s desire to get children back to reading, sleeping and playing outside cannot be mandated. Children’s behaviour ought to be the responsibility of parents, not No10. The social-media ban will only further erode parents’ authority. After all, if the government doesn’t trust parents, why should their children?
What we need is not a ban on social media, but a conversation about how we strengthen the lives of young people. Further weakening the authority of adults is not the way to go about this.
Like everything Keir Starmer does, his social-media ban is pointless and self-defeating. Children need a strong society to help them flourish as adults – not a stronger nanny state.
Emma Gilland is event coordinator for the Academy of Ideas and author of The Corona Generation: Coming of Age in a Crisis, written with Jennie Bristow and published by Zero Books.
Donald Trump has signalled that he is looking to increase sanctions on Russia again as the US is on the cusp of an agreement with Iran.
The US president was speaking shortly after a face-to-face conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the G7 summit in France.
Trump put a waiver on countries buying sanctioned Russian oil earlier this year when global energy supplies were put under strain by the US and Israeli war in Iran.
The controversial move – which undermined years of co-ordinated efforts to punish Russia from Ukraine’s allies – came after Iran effectively shut down the major oil shipping lane, the Strait of Hormuz, in the wake of US-Israeli strikes on Tehran.
But America and Iran have now agreed to hash out a new deal in the next 60 days, and the president has suggested oil transportation will resume.
Trump told reporters at the G7: “Soon we’ll be able to do [reapply penalties against Russia] because the oil is now flowing.
“So we took sanctions off because obviously we’re not looking to impede the US, so we’re in a position to do that soon.”
Senate Democrats told Kyiv Independent in April that Russia earned an additional $150 million per day due to the waiver.
Trump’s shocking decision to ease those penalties came after more than year of yo-yoing from the US president over the Ukraine war, which he once pledged to end within the first 24 hours of his second term.
He has repeatedly rolled out the red carpet for Russia and tried to push Ukraine to give up more land in the name of peace.
But Trump’s remarks from the G7 summit could signal a wider pivot back to support for Kyiv from the White House.
Vladimir Putin is thought to be on the back foot right now in the Ukraine war, more than four years after he first started his illegal land grab.
The economic cost of the conflict, the staggering number of casualties and Kyiv’s recent strikes into the heart of Russia mean Putin is at a disadvantage.
Zelenskyy said ahead of the G7 summit that he was ready to meet his Russian counterpart in the French Alps for face-to-face negotiations, but claimed Putin was not ready to talk.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov hit back, saying: “There are currently no official channels between Kyiv and Moscow.”
He repeated Putin’s previous claims that Zelenskyy could go to Russia if he wanted to talk.
Zelenskyy also sent an open letter to the Russian leader earlier this month calling for them to meet for further negotiations.
But Putin described the missive as “rude,” and rejected it almost immediately.
Listen 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.
Kemi Badenoch has been told she is “not fit to be prime minister” after comparing a cabinet minister to a Nazi.
The Tory leader said education secretary Bridget Phillipson “has acted like a Gestapo officer” by ending a tax break for private schools.
Badenoch made the remark in an interview with The Spectator.
Responding on X, Phillipson said: “The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths. I’ve ended private schools’ tax breaks to invest in state schools.
“No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.”
Labour MP Phil Brickell, secretary of the all party parliamentary group on Germany, called on Badenoch to apologise.
He said: “Kemi Badenoch’s characterisation of Bridget Phillipson as having ‘acted like a Gestapo officer’ over private school VAT fees are contemptible, unbecoming of any parliamentarian and demonstrate – yet again – that Badenoch is completely unfit for public office.
“Her remarks serve no purpose but to undermine the UK-Germany relationship and sow unnecessary division. Ad hominem attacks such as this inexplicable reference to Nazi-era officials should not be tolerated in our public discourse.
“I had hoped that language such as this was a thing of the past. Kemi Badenoch should withdraw her comments immediately and unreservedly apologise.”
A spokesman for Badenoch said: “Bridget Phillipson has pursued a class war on independent schools, forcing many treasured schools to shut, upending the lives of young people across the country, and sending hundreds of children into already overcrowded state schools.
“Worse still, the money from her vindictive tax raid was supposed to fund new teachers, and even the Department for Education’s own website says teacher numbers are lower than under the Conservatives.
“Instead of getting self-righteous, Phillipson should focus on her job. Or even better – stand aside for someone who isn’t out to ruin the lives of people who don’t vote Labour.”
Listen 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.
Soon after a 35°C May record-breaker, the Met Office said more heatwaves are likely in the UK this summer.
And it turns out they may be just days away from being proven right in London.
As of the time of writing (17 June), temperatures between 28°C and 30°C are expected in the capital this weekend.
Here’s what you need to know about: when that could happen, what it would take to count as an official heatwave, and why hot spells can be so insufferable in the city.
When could there be a heatwave in London this June?
The Met Office predicts our current miserable weather will take a sunnier turn on Friday, 19 June.
At that point, temperatures will rise to 29°C.
From then on, per the Met Office, Londoners can expect:
- Friday 19 June: 29°C
- Saturday 20 June: 28°C
- Sunday 21 June: 30°C.
Even if the highest of those temperatures come to pass, however, an official heatwave may still not have taken place.
When is it officially a heatwave in London?
A heatwave is defined as three back-to-back days at or above an area’s maximum temperature threshold.
Because some parts of the UK are usually hotter than others, that upper limit changes depending on location.
As you head further North or West, that threshold is set a little lower than the warmer South-East – around 25°C and 26°C.
But in London, the threshold is 28°C.
That means that it’d need to reach at least 28°C on Tuesday after the predicted Sunday and Monday temperatures to officially count (or Saturday would have to be a degree hotter than currently anticipated).
Why does London feel so hot on sunny days?
As we mentioned before, London is already in the warmer South-East. Then, there’s the infrastructure to consider.
Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, Richard Millard, senior sustainability consultant at Building Energy Experts, said that built-up areas can make already brutal UK heatwaves even more unbearable.
“Our towns and cities have a large urban heat island effect due to the amount of concrete, asphalt and such that absorbs heat and releases it slowly, making cities and towns feel hotter,” he shared.
2026′s two consecutive record-breaking May temperatures were recorded in London’s Kew Gardens this year (34.8°C and 35.1°C, respectively).
Former Tory Laila Cunningham, now a councillor for far-right ‘Reform UK’, has told the hard-right Telegraph that she has received death threats from supporters of even more extreme-right ‘Restore Britain’. Restore supporters don’t like that she is a Muslim.
No Muslim should suffer hate for being a Muslim or for the colour of their skin. But Cunningham – also Reform’s candidate in the next London mayoral election – has pandered to white supremacy and Islamophobic race-hate as a campaign tactic. In January 2026, she said that any woman wearing a burqa should be subject to arbitrary stop-and-search, because:
It has to be assumed that if you’re hiding your face, you’re hiding it for a criminal reason.
Trumpist parrot
She has also parroted Trumpist lies that “nowhere” in London is safe and that:
If you go to parts of London, it does feel like a Muslim city. The signs are written in a different language. You’ve got burqas being sold in markets.
As if that wasn’t enough, in 2025 she said she doesn’t “blame people” for hating Muslims and opposed even a definition of Islamophobia. A cynical mind might suspect she’s trying to court Muslim residents’ votes in Makerfield, where Reform hopes to win a parliamentary by-election this Thursday, 18 June 2026.
Islamophobia is disgusting. And Cunningham might want to take a look in the mirror.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
David Lammy told the Conservatives’ deputy chairman he should be “ashamed of himself” after he mocked the arson attacks targeting Keir Starmer.
Two Ukrainians set alight to the prime minister’s family home and his car in 2025 after being recruited online by a Russian-speaking Telegram user “El Money”.
Roman Lavrynovych, and Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc were convicted of conspiracy to carry out arson attacks on Monday.
But on Tuesday, Matt Vickers joined Talk’s Peter Kyle in laughing at the incident.
The Tory MP joked about the far-right conspiracy theory that the two Ukrainian nationals found guilty of conspiring to carry out the attacks on Starmer’s property and car were “rent boys”.
So when Vickers stood up to ask about the high rates of unemployment during deputy prime minister’s questions, Lammy hit back by pointing out the MP had been “laughing and joking” about the arson attacks against Starmer only yesterday.
Standing in for Starmer, Lammy said: “I must say to this Tory deputy chairman, yesterday he was on television laughing and joking about the arson attack on the prime minister’s home.
“Laughing about a firebomb targeting the prime minister and his family.
“Not only that, he joined with promoting conspiracies about the attack and laughed along to demeaning, homophobic remarks.
“He should be ashamed of himself.
“My advice to him is to grow up, apologise, and do considerably better.”
Vickers just shook his head from the Commons’ opposition benches.
Labour chair Anna Turley later said: “It is frankly sickening that anyone would seek to laugh and joke about an appalling attack on a fellow politician’s family home.
“To do so on the same day as we stood in unity to mark the anniversary of our dear friend and much missed colleague Jo Cox, is beyond the pale.
“Matt Vickers is not fit to be an MP and if Kemi Badenoch had an ounce of integrity or respect for the safety of those who seek to serve the public, she would do the right thing and sack him today.
“Just two days ago, Kemi Badenoch rightly called out the perpetrators of the vile attack against the Prime Minister. Some issues go beyond the rough and tumble of Party politics. If she fails to act now, her words clearly will have meant nothing.”
When asked for his take on the story on Talk on Tuesday, Vickers did begin his interview by acknowledging the serious concerns around Russian influence in the UK and the subsequent impact on security.
However, he soon added: “The idea that there some secret Russian effort to destabilise the country via the prime minister… I mean, you’d leave him in office!”
Kyle laughed loudly while Vickers continued: “Let him destroy the country! Don’t distract him, because he’s doing a pretty canny job of blowing himself up.”
Referring to the false rumour spread by Russia around the attacks, Kyle asked: “Were they rent boys?”
“I’m not familiar with them,” the MP replied, smiling.
Kyle said: “His front door was firebombed wasn’t it? Why are you laughing? It wasn’t his back door, it was his front door.”
The presenter then turned to the backlash to the PM’s attempts to introduce a social media ban for under-16s, adding: “He’s trying to bring a social media ban in through the back door quite quickly, isn’t he?”
Vickers struggled to stop his laughter.
A Tory Party spokesperson said: “If you’ve got an issue with the content of the programme, I suggest taking that up with Jeremy Kyle.”
He said party leader Kemi Badenoch had outright condemned the arson attacks on Tuesday.
The spokesperson said: “If you listen to what he actually says, the content of his words isn’t actually saying anything wrong. He laughed on that part, he was purely polite to the host of a radio programme.”
Watch the Talk interview here:
Listen 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.
Peter Capaldi, who was the 12th Doctor on BBC hit Doctor Who, has spoken out about his exit from the show.
The Thick Of It Star left the franchise in 2017. In a recent appearance on YouTube series 100 Questions with John Simmons, he claimed that he decided to leave the role because “I just wasn’t sure that it was going to go in the direction that I… everybody was leaving that I’d worked with.”
He added, “Everybody was leaving. Jenna [presumably Jenna Louise-Coleman, who played the Doctor’s companion Clara Oswald] had gone, and Steven [probably former head writer Steven Moffat, who also left in 2017] was going, and Brian [likely Brian Minchin], the producer, was going, and those are the people that make it work for you.
“We’d had some talks about the direction. I wasn’t sure that that was where I wanted to go with the show. And I also thought, I’m not sure I could come up with anything new.”
Peter continued to say that while his regeneration, which saw the actor replaced by Jodie Whittaker, was “very sad”, he thinks that the biological process the Doctor uses to survive serious damage has become “diminished”.
Calling the concept “a very, very powerful death motif,” he said, “To be perfectly honest, I think there are too many regenerations.
“I love all the Doctors, but I’ve lost count now of how many of them there are, so the weight of this kind of regeneration is diminished. Whereas when I grew up as a kid, the first time it happened it was: ‘What just happened there?’ It was mysterious and strange. It holds the mystery of the show, the regeneration.”
It’s not the first time he’s expressed his feelings about the show, of which he was a super-fan in his youth.
On the Half Of The Picture podcast this year, he claimed: “The show became very, very big. And it was never like that when I loved it. So it became a different thing.
“I think the show is a little bit of a victim of its success. You know, the show that I loved was a tiny thing, a little small thing that survived. It just survived, but nobody knew that it was warming its way into the culture in such a deep way. And I think that’s what I have an affinity with.”
In the ’70s, the Doctor Who fan club received so much correspondence from a young Capaldi that then-president of the group, Keith Miller, said he felt “haunted” by the Doctor-to-be.
In a new interview with Sky’s Beth Rigby, Keir Starmer has said he wants Andy Burnham to “have a big role in government” if he wins the Makerfield by-election. What Starmer means is he wants Burnham to be a top level minister. The irony is Burnham will likely be the highest level minister possible – i.e. the prime minister:
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) June 17, 2026
BREAKING: Keir Starmer says he wants Andy Burnham to have a “big role in Government” if he wins the Makerfield by-election
Burnham returns
Beth Rigby has described her interview with Starmer as “deeply personal”. It’s unclear what personal stuff they got into, as everything she’s highlighted so far was a work thing.
It’s also unclear why we should care about him personally. We’re not employing him to be a person; we’re employing him to be the prime minister. If a colleague at your work repeatedly f*cked everything up, the last thing you’d want to hear about was how the endless mistakes were making them feel.
Here’s what Rigby highlighted anyway:
“After the weekend” is interesting given that the by-election is on Thursday. Presumably this means Burnham will be busy for a few days (and we expect he will be, because he’ll be plotting to bring down Starmer).
The acknowledgement that he “may not lead Labour into the next election” is interesting given his expressed intent to fight off Burnham. If he can read the writing on the wall, why not just go now?
Of course, he could be saying this because Burnham might not win in Makerfield. And should that happen, Starmer may be able to fend off Wes Streeting and stumble on for a few more years. And that really is the most optimistic scenario for him.
Musical chairs
Regarding Burnham potentially returning to the cabinet, Dan Hodges had this to say:
If Keir Starmer is going to offer Andy Burnham a “big role” in his cabinet, which of his existing senior ministers is he prepared to sacrifice in order to try and save himself.
If Burnham returns to parliament only to fall in line behind Starmer, the question shouldn’t be ‘who gets the sack?‘; it should be ‘who even wants to remain in this dysfunctional Labour government?‘. It probably won’t be, obviously, because the sycophants Starmer has surrounded himself would endure any level of humiliation to retain their grip on power.
Featured image via the Canary
By Willem Moore
We hope you love the products we recommend! All of them were independently selected by our editors. Just so you know, HuffPost UK may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page if you decide to shop from them. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.
Whenever you have an unfortunate yellow stain on your favourite white blouse, or your beloved vacuum cleaner breaks, there’s one place many of us turn to: Amazon.
So, of course, we’re already dreaming of all the money we’ll save on home products ahead of Amazon Prime Day 2026.
Whether you’ve been eyeing up a new air fryer, or you’re finally giving into the Ring doorbell buzz (pun intended), our shopping writer has rounded up the best early Amazon Prime Day deals for home and garden products.
So far, there are already huge savings on some of our favourite brands, from Shark Ninja, to Tefal, Ring, Russell Hobbs, and more.
Keep reading for 17 of the best early Amazon Prime Day deals, as well as everything you need to know about how to get involved in the sale this year.
What is Amazon Prime Day?
Amazon runs an annual Prime Day sale, with deals across multiple categories, including homes and gardens.
Over four days, Amazon Prime members can shop hundreds of discounts across their favourite products. If you’re not already a member, you’ll need to sign up for Amazon Prime to take part.
When is Amazon Prime Day 2026?
Prepare your wallets, because Amazon Prime Day 2026 is less than a week away. The sales will run from 23rd to 26th June, with savings across all kinds of tech, beauty, fashion, and homes products.
How do I take part in Amazon Prime Day?
To take part in Amazon Prime Day sales, you’ll need to be an Amazon Prime member.
Once you’ve created an account, you’ll have access to hundreds of early deals, and thousands of savings when the event drops on 23rd June.
If you’re already eyeing up specific products, save them to your wishlist to come back to during the event, so you can see if they’re included in sales.
The best Amazon Prime Day early home and garden products to shop now
28% off
Best lawnmower
There’s nothing like having to get an extension cable out to put you off doing your housework, so this battery-powered lawnmower will be all the motivation you need to get out into the garden this summer. It’s lightweight and compact, but don’t worry: that doesn’t sacrifice on power. The intensity is completely adjustable, depending on the terrain you’re dealing with, and you can also change the height of the mower to make it more comfortable to manoeuvre. Speaking of comfort, you can simply collapse the mower to store it, and the grass collector does its job well, so you won’t be crawling around picking up strays when you’re done.
26% off
Best hand blender
Whenever a recipe calls for blending, I release an audible sigh. If there’s one thing that can convince me to make a salsa, smoothie, or pesto, though, it’s this 3 in 1 hand blender. It’s not only ridiculously easy to use, but it’s much easier to clean than a traditional blender. It comes with two attachments, depending on whether you’re going for a more processed or whipped texture, and comes with either a chopper or beaker container so you can get as up close and personal with your ingredients as the recipe calls for.
25% off
Best standing fan
If you’re looking for a versatile fan, this standing one from Russell Hobbs will cover all bases. With an adjustable height and tilted blades, it’ll provide as much cooling while you’re sitting on the sofa as it will when using a standing desk. The white colour makes it pretty inoffensive, compared to other tower fans, along with the fact it’s fairly quiet.
29% off
Best double air fryer
It can feel somewhat excessive to heat a whole air fryer to make a few fish fingers, which is why we’re big fans of the fact this one from Tefal has a mini compartment that’s separately operated so you can make smaller meals when the time comes. Or, when you’re cooking for the whole family, you can use both – the larger compartment is so big it can roast a chicken, while the smaller can be home to your accompanying veg, chips, or potatoes.
15% off
Best table fan
Whether you’re working or eating, trying to function as normal in the heat can be near-impossible. To keep you cool and sane, this table fan from Honeywell has a 90-degree oscillating head that will stop the sweat from dripping this summer. With three speed settings, you can choose exactly the power that will keep you comfortable, and it even comes with a wall mount should you need it while cooking or doing your makeup (because let’s be honest, things get slippery very quickly).
20% off
Best oscillating fan
It’s all very well cooling yourself down during a heatwave, but if your room isn’t cool it’s game over. To help get the air flowing in your home, this vertical fan oscillates at three different intensities. Even on the highest mode, it’s fairly quiet, making it perfect for hot sleepers – and you can set a timer for up to 120 minutes to keep you cool at night, too.
30% off
Best hedge trimmer
Put the secateurs and ladder away, this cordless hedge trimmer will leave you with the neatest hedges of your life, and you’ll be able to keep two feet on solid ground the whole time. With dual action blades, and a soft grip handle, you’ll barely notice you’re standing there trimming your hedge.
43% off
Best cordless vacuum
Let’s be honest, cleaning is a chore, so whatever help your appliances can give you is a real blessing. When your arms can’t take it any more, this cordless floor cleaner will keep you going with its self-propelling system. With a smart detector, the vacuum and mopping power will adjust based on spillages and stains, and covers more surface area than other vacuums so you won’t miss any dirt where the floor meets the wall. It even has a self-cleaning function, so you won’t have to empty and clean the mechanisms too often.
15% off
Best budget hoover
Sometimes all you need from an appliance is something that gets the job done. No app compatibility, no wireless charging. Just good ol’ suction power. This budget vacuum from the Amazon Home Range comes in at under £30, and has plenty of that baked in. Although it’s on the cheaper side, reviews claim it’s surprisingly powerful, and it can even be taken apart to make a mini vacuum suitable for getting into smaller spaces.
39% off
Best grass trimmer
Can’t be bothered with a whole mower? For smaller patches, this trimmer is designed to be super accurate and lightweight, so you can trim the grass quickly and crack on with the rest of your gardening. With a one hour battery charge, it’ll last long enough to cover your whole garden, and it’s lightweight, so you’ll have no problem carrying it on longer stretches. The handle is completely adjustable, to avoid any strain on your wrists, knees, or back, and it can also be converted into an edge trimmer in seconds.
31% off
Best app controlled robot vacuum
Whether you’re a self-described worrywart, or have precious items you don’t want your robot vacuum to hoover up, this one from roborock puts precise control over its cleaning routine directly in the palm of your hand. While the device itself comes loaded with intuitive obstacle avoidance, meaning it dodges everything from the sofa to the cat, you can also sync it with your phone or smart watch to control it using your voice and ask it to leave specific areas untouched. You’ll also be able to set your own cleaning schedules, and the charge lasts long enough to get the job done in one go.
11% off
Best robot vacuum for climbing steps
Imagine never having to vacuum again. Truly, what could be better? For a hands-free cleaning experience, this robot vacuum from Dreame comes highly rated, not least because of its ability to get under tight spaces that you might not be bothered to get to. Unlike your corded vacuum that gets tangled or won’t reach up the stairs, this one can climb steps up to 6cm with the included ramp. But it’s not just vacuuming it’ll do for you, it also mops and empties its own water into the included tank so you won’t have to get involved with the mucky mop water. Don’t worry though, it won’t mop your carpets, as it uses clever sensor technology to avoid carpets while on the wet function, and extra suction power to give them a deep clean while vacuuming.
58% off
Best smart TV stick
There are so many streaming platforms these days that trying to find which one that show you wanted to watch is on can take longer than actually watching the show itself. Not to mention lag times when your TV is finally catching up with your wifi. Thanks to the easy search voice button function, Fire Stick Plus will make finding programmes easier than ever. Not only will it take you to your favourite shows, but this smart remote can also provide all the information you need about what you’re watching or recommend shows for you to watch in seconds – all you have to do is chat. Plus, you’ll be able to sync your TV up with your smart home to control everything from alarms and food deliveries, to your baby monitor.
50% off
Best video doorbell all round
If you’re not bothered by the whole ephemera of a Ring, and simply want to know who’s approaching your front door, the latest generation of Ring is now at its lowest price ever – woah. As well as being equipped with a more impressive battery life, it comes with retinal 2K night vision, so it shows what’s going out in your front garden in better detail than any other Ring to date. Set with a free 30 day subscription trial, you’ll have plenty of time to test the doorbell’s features by syncing it up with your Alexa or Echo to customise notifications and make sure you don’t miss a single visitor – unwanted or wanted.
46% off
Best for sparkling water lovers
Now that we’re all being more mindful of our plastic consumption, there’s never really a need to buy bottled water. But for the sparkling water lovers out there, that’s a hard pill to swallow. This Soda Stream can make up to 60 litres of sparkling water with one CO2 canister. As well as being BPA free, and dishwasher safe, it can also make any drink you like fizzy – so you can get started with your very own ‘will it soda?’ hobby.
29% off
Most comprehensive Ring bundle
Want to ensure security for your home? If you’ve never heard or seen a Ring doorbell, where have you been?! This one comes with savings on not only the bell itself but a wifi extender, chime box, and nightlight, which all work to make sure you can keep an eye on your front door, whether you’re in the kitchen or away on a cruise.
40% off
It’s smoothie season! If you prefer to drink your greens, it’s time to upgrade to a blender that won’t leave you with clumps. Whether you’re making a gazpacho, frozen marg, or your favourite juice, this blender can handle up to two litres of liquid, and it’ll work with hot food come soup season. So you don’t risk nicking your fingers while you clean it, it comes with dishwasher-safe parts, too.
Woman rushed to hospital from Manchester Ship Canal
Betting Tips, Odds and Predictions for 2026 World Cup Opener
All 6 Christopher Nolan Epic Movies, Ranked
Blockchain.com files with SEC for U.S. IPO
Israel says it has killed new Hamas military leader in Gaza City airstrikes
NYT Strands Answers May 24 2026 Revealed for Puzzle No. 812 Theme Summer Essentials
FINANCIAL BREAKTHROUGH: No More Debts | Miracles Aglow
#StockMarket #ShareMarket #Investing #Trading #StockMarketTelugu #Money #Finance #BeginnerInvestor #
That is certainly one way to handle a problem #funny #money #shopping #budget #shorts
-
Business3 days agoNo Jackpot Winner as $257 Million Prize Rolls Over to $269 Million Monday Draw
-
Crypto World6 days agoOppenheimer backs SpaceX as $70 billion retail frenzy builds
-
Fashion5 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Tuckernuck – Corporette.com
-
Crypto World6 days agoMarkets Rally as SpaceX IPO Looms Amid Iran Tensions and Inflation Surge
-
Crypto World3 days agoZimbabwe Requires Crypto Businesses to Register Annually Under New FIU Regulations
-
Tech4 days agoNanoClaw integrates JFrog registries to secure AI agent downloads
-
Tech5 days agoThis Week In Security: Microsoft On Microsoft, Register Your Domains, Linux On ARM, And FreeBSD Joins The File Cache Club
-
Crypto World4 days agoBitget enters Argentina’s regulated crypto market through PSAV registration
-
Tech6 days agoDutton Ranch star claims they ‘didn’t see any disruption’ on set following Chad Feehan’s exit from Yellowstone spinoff fueled by Taylor Sheridan clash rumors
-
NewsBeat6 days agoEl Nino has formed in the Pacific and could set records, forecasters say
-
Politics6 days agoPolitics Home | Healey Resignation Is “Colossal Failure Of Government”, Says Former Labour Defence Secretary
-
Entertainment6 days agoDonnie Wahlberg & More Heat Up Las Vegas at Circa’s Barry’s Downtown Prime
-
Tech6 days agoOpendoor Ends India Operations, Fueling a Bigger Conversation About AI and Outsourcing
-
Politics6 days agoBelfast burns, while Met chief points finger at Iran and Russia
-
Sports6 days agoFirst Time Since 1971: Australia Register Historic Low In ODI Cricket
-
Business6 days agoAT&T: Verizon's 27% Outperformance Sets Up A Solid Entry Point
-
NewsBeat5 days agoFBI searches office of Ohio voter registration group
-
Tech6 days agoAnthropic is spending $150M to embed 1,000 AI fellows inside nonprofits. No degree required.
-
Politics6 days agoModi thanks Trump for wishes as US attacks Indian seafarers
-
Entertainment5 days ago‘The Pitt’s Fan-Favorite Doctor Confirms Noah Wyle Gave His Blessing to Return [Exclusive]
You must be logged in to post a comment Login