Politics
17 Of The Best Quilts And Bed Throws For Winter 2026
Ladies and gentlemen (and gays and theys), I am absolutely thrilled to say this: it’s officially cosy season.
Finally, there’s a valid excuse to stay in my bed every night all season long. The second it gets cold, all I want to do is roll myself up in my bed like a burrito and whack on some good old-fashioned reality TV.
One thing that adds to my bedscaping every year is having the cosiest quilt or throw possible.
Not only does it add an extra layer of warmth, but the weight of the blanket is enough to convince me I don’t need to be out and about in the world like a normal (ahem) person.
The extra splash of colour, pattern, or texture also adds a welcome pop of colour to any room.
So if you’re looking for (another) reason to stay indoors this cosy season, I’ve rounded up the best cosy quilts and throws to shop now.
Politics
Why was an Eritrean sex offender set free to rape again?
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Politics
Britain’s two-tier burqa ban – spiked
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Politics
Oasis Tour 2027: Key Dates, Ticket Prices And Everything Else You Need To Know
Oasis have finally confirmed the worst-kept secret in music – they’re heading off on tour again next year.
Fresh from the release of their concert film Don’t Look Back In Anger, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher announced on Monday afternoon that they’ll be hitting the road for a new string of shows in 2027.
“START THE CELEBRATIONS!!!!” they said in a joint statement. “After a period of reflection, ‘The Most Damaging Pop Cultural Force In Recent British History’ has declared itself fit for purpose and will once again return to lift the spirits of the people.”
“Come witness the fitness. It shall be a sight to behold,” they added.
When are Oasis going on tour in 2027?
The new shows will begin in Glasgow at the end of May 2027, with a run of five shows at Celtic Park.
From there, as was previously rumoured, they’ll set up residency in their hometown of Manchester, for 11 nights at the Etihad Stadium in June.
After that, they’ll be hitting up Munich, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome, before heading to North America for gigs in Boston and Las Vegas.
The tour will then conclude with two nights at Slane Castle in Ireland, before four more shows at Knebworth, marking 30 years since the band’s last record-breaking jaunt there.
When are Oasis tickets for their 2027 tour going on sale?
Alright, pay attention, because famously, tickets were pretty hard to come by for Oasis’ 2025 shows.
A registration process for the 2027 tour has been set up, which is already open for fans over on the band’s website.
To be in with a chance, you must register before 4pm on Thursday 17 September. If you’re successful, you’ll then be sent a non-transferable code, with tickets then going on sale on either 25, 26 or 27 September, depending on which date you want to go to.
An official press release explains: “The registration process is the only public way to buy tickets for Oasis Live ’27. There will be no general onsale or other public presales outside of this process. This structure has been created to ensure the purchase process is as fair and smooth as possible for Oasis fans.”
How much will tickets be for Oasis’ 2027 tour?
Standard ticket will range between £71.50 and £266.60, including fees. For more ticket info, you can visit Oasis’ website here.
Politics
Macklemore Dropped As Ed Sheeran’s Opening Act After Pro-Palestine Comments
Macklemore will no longer be performing as the opening act for Ed Sheeran on his ongoing US tour, after the rapper made headlines with a number of his pro-Palestine comments.
On Monday afternoon, a spokesperson for Ed’s current tour, Messina Touring Group, told Rolling Stone: “As the concert promoter for Ed Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, we have been notified by venues on the upcoming US tour dates that they will not allow a concert to take place with Macklemore on the line-up, which would result in the cancellation of the tour and impact hundreds of thousands of fans.
“After discussions with stakeholders, Macklemore will not be performing on the remaining support dates.”
During his sets earlier on in Ed’s tour, Macklemore declared “free Palestine” from the stage, expressed solidarity with the people of Gaza amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and showed images conveying the damage in Gaza on screen.
“A big part of the reason why I wanted to do this tour in the first place is so I could stand up in stadiums like this and say two words that are very near and dear to my heart: ‘free Palestine’,” he said on stage while performing in New Jersey earlier this month. “I said, ‘free Palestine!’.
“I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them.”
Following this, a petition was set up calling for Macklemore’s removal from the tour by the Israeli American Council.
HuffPost UK has contacted representatives for both Macklemore and Ed Sheeran for comment.

One of Macklemore’s most vocal critics since his on stage comments in support of Palestine have begun making headlines is the singer Pink.
In the days that followed, she reposted an image on Instagram alleging that the Thrift Shop rapper had used the concert to spew “anti-Israel propaganda”, calling for an apology from Macklemore for what he’d said on stage.
She later issued a lengthier statement on social media, part of which read: “I was in the room at the Grammys in 2014 when Macklemore rapped Same Love and thirty-three couples, gay and straight, got married to it, and I cheered, no questions asked.
“Four months later Macklemore put on a hooked nose, a black beard and a bowl cut, performed in it, and called it a ‘random costume’. Every Jew I know knew exactly what it was. The same love, it turned out, had a guest list, and we weren’t on it. But he apologised, and I let it go, because that’s what we do. We let it go.
“Then last weekend he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them. You don’t get to decide that for us. That’s what prompted my repost. Not ‘Free Palestine’, and not anyone’s right to say it.
“I have never asked for another artist to be silenced and I’m not asking now. I don’t need anyone fired, and I don’t need a refund. What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mum, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love’, without being told our fear is just propaganda, and without being told I’m somehow cool with genocide because I noticed?”
Politics
Scottish Welsh NI Leaders Pledge To End UK
Irish The leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have pledged to work together to end the United Kingdom.
For the first time ever, the first ministers of all three countries are the leaders of nationalist parties.
SNP leader John Swinney and his Welsh counterpart Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, both want independence for their countries.
In Northern Irleland, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill wants Ireland to be reuinted.
All three of them met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a “memorandum of understanding” setting out their aims.
It said: “For people watching across these islands – for people watching around the world – there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is coming to an end.”
So how likely are they to see their political wishes come true?
Scotland
Unlike in Wales and Ireland, the question of whether Scotland should leave the United Kingdom has already been put to the people.
In 2014, Scots voted by 55% to 45% to remain part of the UK in a fiercely-contested referendum.
It took place because the then prime minister, David Cameron, agreed to temporarily transfer the power to organise such a referendum from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament.
At the time, the then SNP leader and Scottish first minister, Alex Salmond, described it as a “once in a generation” event.
Since then however, successive SNP leaders have demanded a second referendum, and every time it has been refused by the PM of the day.
Opinion polls continue to show that the people of Scotland are evenly split on whether their country should be independent.
Speaking in cardiff, John Swinney said it was “crystal clear” that there should be a referendum during the current Holyrood term, which ends in 2031.
However, there appears to be little appetite in Scotland for a re-run of the 2014 vote in the near future, meaning the prospect of independence is likely off the table for the next decade at least.
Wales
Last May, voters in Wales elected a Plaid Cymru government for the first time in the devolution era, which began in 1999.
Indeed, it was the first time in over a century that Wales had rejected the Labour Party.
Although Plaid Cymru are committed to Welsh independence, the most recent opinion poll showed that just 32% of the country would currently vote to leave the UK, compared to 68% who are happy with the status quo.
However, the same poll, by Survation, showed that independence has majority support among Welsh under-45s.
That suggests that while a referendum on the subject is not on the agenda right now, it could be at some point in the future.
In the meantime, Plaid Cymru is committee to demanding more powers be devolved from Westminster to the Welsh Assembly.
Rhun ap Iorwerth said: “While Wales and Scotland are on different constitutional journeys, we both share a commitment to strong, accountable devolved government, and to a relationship between the governments of these islands built on trust and mutual respect.
“We share a belief that our people should decide their own future, and that the union isn’t working fairly for either nation.”
Northern Ireland
The question of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland becoming one unified country for the first time in more than a century was thrown into sharp focus at the weekend by none other than Donald Trump.
Speaking during a visit to Ireland, the US president said he “would love to see” it happen, adding: “It’s going to happen eventually.”
His comments sparked an angry backlash from many of Trump’s supporters, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
However, they were welcomed by supporters of reunification, including Michelle O’Neill.
She said: “I think the comments from the president of the United States very much reflect the fact that the unity debate is very much alive, and people are engaged in it, not just at home, but obviously now internationally as well.
“I think that tells us where we’re at with where the thinking is around: what is the big prize here for our people? And the big prize here is unification.
“It is the end of partition and it is that new beginning in a new Ireland.”
However, just as in Scotland and Wales, there is little prospect of Irish unity any time soon.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended the Troubles in 1998, a so-called “border poll” can only happen if the Northern Ireland Secretary believes there is majority support for one.
But the most recent opinion poll, in May, showed that support for Northern Ireland remaining in the UK stands at 58% to 42% in favour.
So What Does It All Mean?
While it is doubtlessly significant that the largest parties in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all nationalist, it does not necessarily follow that the break up of the United Kingdom is inevitable.
The gathering in Cardiff of Swinney, ap Iorwerth and O’Neill, and their memorandum of understanding, was a good PR stunt, but is unlikely to shift the constitutional debate in any of their countries.
While Scotland’s first minister declaration that Andy Burnham will be the last prime minister of the UK was a neat soundbite, there is a vanishingly small chance of it actually becoming true.
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.
Politics
Politics Home | Tory Council Asks For Housing Benefit Boost Despite Kemi Badenoch Calling For Cuts

3 min read
A Conservative-run council is lobbying the government to increase housing benefit, just as party leader Kemi Badenoch pledges to cut it.
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) limits how much Universal Credit is paid to private renters. It is meant to cover the cheapest 30 per cent of private sector rents in each area, with claimants whose rent is higher paying the shortfall themselves.
The Labour government has frozen LHA’s cash value for the last two years, resulting in a real-terms cut because actual rents have risen in that time.
Badenoch has pledged to fund greater defence spending by cutting benefits, including reducing housing benefit so that it covers the cheapest 10 per cent of local private rents – one in ten privately rented homes.
Pensioners would be exempt, but existing tenancies would be affected, with their LHA rates frozen in cash terms until they gradually fell in line with the 10th percentile.
A report tabled at a meeting of Enfield Council’s cabinet last week said: “The council continues to lobby the government to lift the temporary accommodation subsidy cap and the raising of LHA to the 30 per cent of the market on an ongoing basis”.
Enfield in North London has been in Tory minority control since the Conservatives ousted Labour in May.
The council’s newly approved homelessness and rough sleeping strategy said: “The average private sector rent in Enfield is substantially higher than LHA levels, creating additional affordability challenges for low-income households and increasing the risk of homelessness.”
It added that average rents in Enfield have risen by 12 per cent in the year leading up to June 2025, while “government benefits have not kept pace with these rising costs”.
Enfield Council declined to comment on Badenoch’s statement.
PoliticsHome has identified eight other Conservative-led councils that since the 2024 general election have flagged LHA cuts as a driver of housing unaffordability and homelessness: Hillingdon, Kensington and Chelsea, Harlow, Test Valley, Lichfield, North West Leicestershire, North Yorkshire, and East Hampshire.
Kensington and Chelsea council told PoliticsHome it supports ending the LHA freeze and restoring the link to the 30th percentile of local rents.
Last summer, a homelessness review from East Hampshire council found that the freeze has been “particularly challenging” for people under 35 who receive a single room rate, “and this is reflected in the number of homelessness approaches from this group”.
The two-year LHA freeze has meant that across England, on average it is now limited to the cheapest 12 per cent of local rents for shared accommodation, the 11th percentile of one-bed rents, the 12th percentile for two-bed homes, the 14th percentile for three-bed homes, and the 16th percentile for larger homes.
In some areas, LHA is now worth less than the 10th percentile of local rents that Badenoch wants to reduce it to, according to the government’s Valuation Office Agency.
A Conservative Party spokesperson denied that their plans would worsen homelessness, telling PoliticsHome: “Our policy applies only to new tenants, and even then, those who needed to move would simply have to live in a slightly cheaper house – they would not be homeless.”
They added that their proposals would “reduce uncertainty for families” by replacing “stop-start freezes” with guaranteed annual upratings to maintain the 10 per cent threshold, and include protections for existing LHA tenants.
A government spokesperson said: “We’re tackling the impact of rising rents and the housing shortage with our commitment to build 1.5m homes – including the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation.
“We are also investing more than £1bn in homelessness services, launching a cross-government homelessness strategy, and investing a record £39 billion in affordable and social housing.
“LHA rates are reviewed annually, and future decisions on LHA will be taken in the context of the government’s welfare priorities and the fiscal context.”
Politics
How To Slow Down Cognitive Decline, Starting In Midlife
Though not all of our dementia risk is within our control, a standing commission from The Lancet has found that up to 45% of our likelihood of developing the condition is down to “potentially modifiable” lifestyle choices.
These include more obvious habits, like not smoking and controlling blood pressure. But some less expected variables – such as protecting your hearing and staying socially connected – matter too.
According to a new paper published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, meanwhile, two habits in midlife might significantly lower your odds of cognitive decline (sometimes seen as a precursor to dementia) in older age.
Heart health seems to be key
In this research, scientists assessed the heart health of 402 middle-aged and older adults using the American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 measurements.
These include eating habits, body mass index (BMI), smoking status, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and blood sugar.
Sleep has since been added to this list, now called Life’s Essential 8. But because this wasn’t included when the study began, researchers didn’t measure it in this study.
Study after study has found an association between brain and heart health. So, the researchers wanted to look at how each component of the Simple 7 list corresponded to cognitive decline risk.
Which two factors seemed to help the most?
After years of follow-up, physical activity and blood sugar levels seemed to have the strongest influence on participants’ rates of cognitive decline.
Hispanic adults in this US-based study saw greater benefits from higher levels of physical activity, while white non-Hispanic adults seemed to reap greater rewards from well-controlled blood sugar.
Hispanic adults are at greater risk of dementia in the US.
Dr Janette Vazquez, the study’s lead author, said: “Our findings suggest that engaging in any level of physical activity and potentially maintaining optimal fasting blood glucose levels in midlife are associated with a significantly slower rate of cognitive decline in late life”.
But she added that more research is needed: “The longitudinal exploration of cardiovascular health throughout life, rather than assessing it at a single time point, could also provide further insight into the trajectory phenotypes contributing to cognitive decline by ethnicity”.
Politics
Andy Burnhams Dad Passes Away After Alzheimers Battle
Andy Burnham’s father Roy has died after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Downing Street has announced.
The prime minister has cancelled his engagements for today and tomorrow following his passing.
He has previously said his father’s illness meant he did not know his son had become PM.
Speaking to The Times in July, Burnham said: “That’s a sadness because he would be [proud].
“The way I look at it, it’s his achievement as well. A whole family achievement although he doesn’t know it.”
In a separate interview with the How To Fail podcast, Burnham revealed that staff at his father’s care home had put him in front of a television showing his son walking up Downing Street as prime minister for the first time.
He said: “I went into his care home the Sunday after I’d become prime minister, and one of the staff said ‘the manager wants to speak to you before you leave’.
“I went over and I spoke to her. She said ‘we all know what kind of time you might be coming up Downing Street, so we got Roy in his chair, and we got the telly right in front of him, and six of us all stood round him. And we all said look Roy, look’. She said ‘momentarily, we thought he knew’.”
Burnham also spoke about his father’s experience as he set out his plans to reform social care.
He promised to help “my dad and the millions like him” faced with the unfairness of the current system.
Politics
Courteney Cox Speaks For First Time About Hayden Panettiere’s Death
The two actors shared the screen in two instalments in the Scream franchise, in which the former Friends star has played Gale Weathers in all seven movies, and Hayden played Kirby Reed in the fourth and sixth.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Courteney remembered her late co-star as a “really wonderful actor”, recalling that the “last time I worked with her, we had a great time”.
Courteney added: “She was really fun and happy and smart, and it’s really sad. It’s obviously horrible.”
“The cause and manner of death remain pending further investigation and the completion of additional studies,” the Greenville County Coroner’s Office said shortly after the news of Hayden’s death was made public. “This investigation remains active and ongoing. No further details are available for release at this time.”
More recently, police officers in Greenville claimed that Hayden’s ex-boyfriend, Brian Hickerson, and his brother, Zach, had both been at the late Heroes actor’s apartment at the time of her death.
Politics
Amy Hunt’s Comment For Sydney Sweeney Over Controversial Advert
British sprinter Amy Hunt has added her voice to the ongoing debate surrounding Sydney Sweeney’s controversial new ad campaign.
On Sunday, the four-time European champion and Olympic silver medallist took part in the Ultimate Championship in Budapest, where she finished in fourth place.
“Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like,” she told the BBC after completing the race, referring to competitor Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s winning time.
Amy added: “Muscles, hard work, blood, sweat, tears. This is a beautiful evening.”
Euphoria star Sydney first sparked backlash last week when she unveiled a new ad for the sports betting brand Novig.

Posing nude in various sporting settings, save for various items like American footballs, basketballs and protective equipment, the Emmy nominee remarked: “Novig is just sports. So, they wanted to show… just sports.”
Sydney has since faced a wave of criticism, including from numerous female athletes who have accused her of “sexualising” women’s sports.
In response to the ad, swimmer and Olympic gold medallist Ariarne Titmus wrote on Instagram: “How do we live in a world where monetising a woman’s body and sexualising women’s sport is still a thing?”
Meanwhile, world champion boxer Skye Nicolson said “these companies need to do better” and “stop sexualising women in sport”.
While Sydney has not yet commented publicly on the backlash, she did appear to be referencing it in a series of Instagram story posts on Sunday night,.
The US actor posted a string of nude photo-shoots which leading sports figures, including Serena Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, Megan Rapinoe, Rob Gronkowski, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jason Kelce, had taken part in over the years.
HuffPost UK has contacted Sydney Sweeney and Novig for comment.
This isn’t the first time Sydney has landed herself in hot water over an advert.
Last year, she faced widespread criticism over a very different ad campaign, when it was suggested that a promo video for American Eagle she’d appeared in had mirrored the language of white supremacists and eugenicists.
Sydney later said she had been left “surprised by the reaction” to the advert, after spending months mostly swerving questions about the media storm, while the fashion brand insisted their ad had been “about the jeans” and nothing more.
“We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their American Eagle jeans with confidence, their way,” they said in a statement. “Great jeans look good on everyone.”
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