Politics
Gardeners Should Check Their Leaves In The Morning This Summer
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As we head into summer, your garden might start to suffer from a lack of sweet H2O.
There are some tests you can run to make sure your grass is getting all it needs, though. Placing a pan of water on your lawn will tell you how much has evaporated from your soil, while footprints that stay imprinted on your garden long after you’ve strolled over it might mean it’s on the verge of drying out.
Additionally, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) said that looking at your leaves in the morning could help gardeners evaluate their hydration situation.
Why should I look at my leaves in the morning?
The RHS stressed that “Established trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials in beds and borders will only need watering in extreme drought,” adding you should only water the most stressed plants in these cases.
And one of the signs of that dehydration-related stress shows in their leaves, they added.
“Drooping leaves, especially in the early morning, often indicate drought,” they advised.
The Duchy of Cornwall Nursery said that often, established and slightly dehydrated plants “perk up” at night.
But the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources added “Wilting or drooping leaves that do not return to normal (without additional water) by
morning” are a sign of drought-related plant stress.
What should I do if I suspect drought?
Try to water slowly and evenly, so that the soil is hydrated 15cm or so beneath the surface, the RHS said.
Rainwater is better for plants than tap water. And it’s generally best to water in the morning – this both helps to repel hungry slugs at night and gives grass more of a chance to absorb the liquid.
If you’re watering garden plants, try to point the nozzle of your watering can right at their base, so that you hit the roots instead of the leaves (watering leaves on a sunny day can sometimes scald them).
And potted plants sometimes benefit from a jacuzzi: if dehydrated, sit them in a sink or bath of water and let them drink for a while.
Related…
The amount of hours you spend asleep isn’t the be-all end-all when it comes to health: one study found that sleep regularity was more strongly linked to a longer life than sleep duration.
But that’s not to say it doesn’t matter. Getting at least seven hours’ shut-eye nightly seems to help us live longer, function better, and even lower our dementia risk.
And the lead author of recent research published in Nature, Junhao Wen, has said: “Previous studies have found that sleep is largely linked to ageing and the pathological burden of the brain.
“Our study goes further and shows that too little and too much sleep are associated with faster ageing in nearly every organ, supporting the idea that sleep is important in maintaining organ health within a coordinated brain-body network, including metabolic balance, and a healthy immune system.”
How much sleep should I get to age better?
Using data collected from half a million members of the UK Biobank (a depositary of thousands of participants’ health data that scientists can use for health research), Wen created 23 “ageing clocks” to predict the rate of ageing of various organs and body systems.
He then compared that to the participants’ sleep patterns.
The paper said that those who sleep less than six hours or more than eight hours a night saw faster ageing, on average: a “U-shaped” association.
And there appeared to be a sleep duration sweet spot, too.
The least amount of ageing seemed to happen in those who slept between 6.4 and 7.8 hours a night in this research, though this varied by “organ and sex in the UK Biobank (aged 37-84 years)”.
And people who neither slept too much nor too little seemed to be at a lower risk of “all-cause mortality”, too.
Poor sleep was also linked to increased risk of disease
In this research, either too much or too little sleep was linked to a higher likelihood of disease.
Short sleep was linked to depression, anxiety, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, ischemic heart disease, and heart arrhythmia.
Both short and long sleep were associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and multiple digestive issues, including gastritis and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
“The broad brain-body pattern is important because it tells us that sleep duration is a deeply embedded part of our entire physiology, with far-reaching implications across the body,” said Wen.
The paper read, “Our results underscore the systemic biological adverse associations of disturbed sleep and provide a compelling framework for more targeted and thoughtful attention to sleep disturbance as a potential signal of emerging health issues and a partner in the quest to promote healthy ageing, reduce disease risk and extend lifespan.”
DAYS THE BUDGET IS LATE: 48
WOULD HAVE IF HE COULD HAVE: Mayor Zohran Mamdani planned to appear in a video he released over the weekend to commemorate the displacement of Palestinians that occurred in connection with the State of Israel’s creation.
He only opted against being in the video — which drew backlash from local Jewish leaders — because he fell ill, he said this morning at a Bronx press event.
“I was intending to be there as part of it,” Mamdani told reporters. “However, I did fall sick, and we didn’t want to create any kind of complication for her.”
Mamdani was referring to Inea Bushnaq, a woman who lived in the British Mandate for Palestine as a child and was featured in the video released on the mayor’s official social media handles late Friday.
In the 4-minute video, Bushnaq, filmed in her home in New York City, recalls how she was nine when she and her family had to flee their home in East Jerusalem in 1948 during the “Nakba,” an Arabic word that translates into “catastrophe” and denotes the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians upon the establishment of Israel. “The Zionists were coming into Jerusalem,” Bushnaq says in the video.
Local Jewish leaders, including a member of Mamdani’s transition team, were outraged by the video, arguing it provided a one-sided, overly simplified account of the region’s history.
As noted by The Forward’s Jacob Kornbluh, many Jews around the world contend the displacement of Palestinians did not just occur at the hand of Israeli forces. Rather, they point to neighboring Arab states, including Egypt and Syria, which launched military attacks in response to the new Jewish state’s creation in the wake of the Holocaust.
At his press conference today, Mamdani was asked for a response to the criticism that his team’s video excluded critical context.
“I firmly believe that acknowledging any one people’s pain does not preclude you from the acknowledgement of another people’s,” he said. “When it comes to New Yorkers like Inea and so many others, not only has their pain never been acknowledged, but so often we have seen that even their identity is up for debate, and my message to each and every New Yorker is that this is a city for you and that we will continue to be proud of everyone who calls it home.”
His comments come as he’s set to host a reception commemorating Jewish American Heritage Month at Gracie Mansion tonight. The mayor’s release of the Nakba Day video has led some Jewish leaders to boycott the event. They include Mark Treyger, a former City Council member who now leads the Jewish Community Relations Council, and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, the FDNY’s chief chaplain and the executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Assemblymember Sam Berger, a Democrat who represents large Jewish communities in Queens, was still incensed by the video when asked about it this afternoon.
“The mayor has spent his career bending reality with his policies and his budget, so it’s no surprise he’s trying to bend history too,” he said in a statement to Playbook.
The decision by Mamdani to release the video on Nakba Day is part of his longstanding record of aligning himself with Palestinian rights and struggles.
As a candidate last year, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, faced criticism for refusing to initially denounce the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which many see as a call to violence against Jewish people. As mayor, he has said he’s committed to combating all forms of hate, including antisemitism, while also continuing to accuse Israel of perpetrating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as part of the war launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack.
Gustavo Gordillo, the co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member, celebrated the video, saying it’s consistent with the chapter’s “history of standing up for Palestinian solidarity.”
“Representing the historic struggle of the people of the city is part of the mayor’s job, and I think that’s what he was doing here,” Gordillo said. — Chris Sommerfeldt and Jason Beeferman
FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
BETH DAVIDSON VS. BETH DAVIDSON: Beth Davidson’s congressional campaign has made it crystal clear on her website she absolutely supports establishing term limits — but if you ask her in person you may get an answer that sounds completely different.
Davidson, who’s running in the Democratic primary to unseat Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, says on the “priorities” section of her campaign website that she wants to “enact term limits and stronger ethics rules, to keep career politicians and corrupt insiders in check.”
But at a candidate forum in Ossining earlier this month, when she and her Democratic rivals were asked whether they would “support term limits for U.S. representatives and senators,” Davidson responded, “I actually don’t.”
“Some districts have members that have served them a long time. Some we’re done with after two years. I think it has to be up to the voters,” Davidson explained.
When asked about the discrepancy, Davidson’s campaign said the language on her campaign website is consistent with her support for term limits in the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Beth has clear plans to take on corruption in DC, including enacting term limits for Supreme Court Justices, banning stock trading by Members of Congress, and ending Citizens United to keep special interests and corporations out of our elections,” her campaign manager Ellen McCormick told Playbook.
Davidson was the only major candidate at the forum who opposed term limits for members of Congress, with her opponents Cait Conley and Effie Phillips-Staley supporting the idea. — Jason Beeferman
From the Capitol
TRAIN DREAMS: Gov. Kathy Hochul this morning visited the state office building in Lower Manhattan where negotiators for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Long Island Railroad and five striking unions are meeting. As of mid-afternoon, no deal to end the LIRR strike had been reached.
In a video posted on social media, the governor said the morning commute had gone “smoother than expected” and that she was fighting to “protect our taxpayers and our commuters from having to pay hundreds of dollars more.”
Outside, picketers — one of them wearing a t-shirt that said “Fuck You, Pay Me” — chanted slogans like, “New York is a union town, Janno Lieber shut it down.” Lieber is the head of the MTA.
Hochul has so far appeared to stake out a more pro-MTA position than Gov. Mario Cuomo did during the last LIRR strike in 1994, which was also a gubernatorial election year. To quickly end the strike, Cuomo — whose son Hochul succeeded as governor — brokered a deal that gave the unions what they wanted.
But Hochul also appears to be keeping her political distance while blaming President Donald Trump for the strike.
In 1994, The New York Times reported that Cuomo was “positively hyperactive in confronting” the strike by cancelling public appearances, including a ticker-tape parade for the New York Rangers who had just won the Stanley Cup. The Times said he’d also “placed round-the-clock telephone calls to the top negotiators, members of Congress, Long Island leaders and the aides he sent to the bargaining table.”
This time around, Hochul has never publicly mentioned the possibility of Congress intervening. Trying to go that route is a nightmare for labor-friendly Democrats: Railroad unions are still bitter about when President Joe Biden got Congress to head off a freight rail strike in 2022. There were crickets from Congress last year when a union of train engineers went on strike and idled New Jersey Transit trains.
Trump said Sunday that until a day after the LIRR strike had begun he’d “never even heard about it.” (The president in September and again in January issued executive orders to create three-member panels to investigate the dispute and issue reports — a standard move in any rail labor dispute.) On Sunday afternoon, federal mediators summoned both sides to negotiations at the MTA headquarters. Those lasted late into the night and resumed this morning.
Hochul’s argument is that the Trump administration last year released the unions from one part of the mediation process early, a maneuver that set up a series of cooling off periods that ended Saturday, when the strike began. The part of the process she’s referring to allows federal officials to indefinitely keep unions in mediation without the ability to strike as long as there’s a reasonable chance of a settlement. Some of those mediations lasted for years.
This time around, all five unions and the MTA participated in mediation sessions between March 2024 and July 2025 before they were released in August. — Ry Rivard
FROM CITY HALL
FOOD DESERT: Mamdani’s plan to open a city-owned grocery store next year in Hunts Point could be a boon for access to healthy food in the bodega-dominated South Bronx, where diabetes and obesity rates far exceed citywide averages.
Hundreds of bodegas are spread throughout four ZIP codes in the South Bronx, accounting for 35 percent of all food establishments in the area, according to a Health Department analysis released last month. While most of the bodegas offered fresh produce, a third of them sold no fresh vegetables besides onions and potatoes — and, overall, healthy meal and snack options were limited, the analysis found.
For every supermarket in the South Bronx, there are four fast food restaurants and six bodegas, the analysis found.
In Hunts Point, the average cost of a standard grocery basket — which includes staples like eggs, deli beef, tomatoes, lettuce, bread, potatoes, milk and bananas — was $39.20 last year, but up to half of those items were generally unavailable, according to the analysis.
“Making sure every New Yorker can buy fresh, affordable groceries in their own neighborhood is a key part of our affordability agenda,” Mamdani said in a statement Monday.
The Economic Development Corp. is preparing a request for proposals for private operators to manage the Hunts Point grocery store and an additional store in East Harlem, which was announced in April and is slated to open by 2029. — Maya Kaufman
IN OTHER NEWS
— FRONT AND CENTER: Puerto Rico has emerged as a key issue in the race to succeed Rep. Nydia Velázquez, as rival progressive camps clash over the district’s political future. (THE CITY)
— PRISON REFORM: Still awaiting appointments from Hochul to reach a quorum, New York’s Committee on Correction is unable to meet or vote, delaying jail reform implementations. (New York Focus)
— LUIGI TAKES A HIT: A Manhattan judge ruled that the gun and notebook seized from Luigi Mangione will be admissible at his upcoming murder trial, while excluding items obtained during an initial warrantless search. (The New York Times)
Missed this morning’s New York Playbook? We forgive you. Read it here.
Kemi Badenoch has said it was “very flattering” to be praised by Nicki Minaj for monstering Wes Streeting in the Commons.
A video of the Tory leader mocking the then health secretary went viral last week and was shared on X by the ‘Starships’ singer.
Badenoch rounded on Streeting amid speculation that he was preparing to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership.
In a debate on the King’s Speech setting out the government’s plans, she said: “Scrapping NHS England, something the prime minister announced 14 months ago – but I suppose the health secretary has been a it distracted lately hasn’t he?”
Looking straight at Streeting on the Labour front bench, she said: “He’s chuntering now, why don’t you just do your job? Do your job!”
Badenoch added: “There’s no point him giving me dirty looks, we all know what he has been up to. We all know.”
Commenting on the clip, Minaj: “The UK is truly one of a kind. They will portray her [Badenoch] in film & TV one day…just like they did with Margaret Thatcher.”
Asked on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg how she felt about Minaj’s reaction, Badenoch said: “It was very flattering, Nicki Minaj saying that. I do like her song ‘Starships’.”
But asked by Kuenssberg if she liked any of her other songs, Badenoch was stumped.
She said: “Any of her other songs? That’s the one that I know, so I’ll stick with that one because I do like it.
“It’s flattering, because they’re not used to presidents being held to account the way that we do in parliament. It’s one of the things that’s really special about this country.”
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.
Times columnist Matthew Syed last week bemoaned what he described as the ‘hysteria’ surrounding calls to replace UK prime minister Keir Starmer. According to Syed, Britain has entered an era of permanent leadership speculation in which no prime minister, whether Labour, Conservative or Reform, will ever be secure for long. He concluded with the dire warning that ‘Britain is becoming ungovernable’.
Syed is far from alone in this diagnosis. A growing number of centrist commentators now argue that Britain has entered an age of chronic political instability in which governments can no longer sustain authority or maintain public trust. They have portrayed Britain – and Western democracies more broadly – as increasingly fragmented, volatile and difficult to govern.
Starmer’s trajectory in government has hardly helped this mood of elite despair. He entered Downing Street with a huge majority and the promise that, after years of Tory psychodrama, the ‘adults’ were back in charge. Barely two years later, his popularity has collapsed, and the knives are out in the Labour Party. As of this week, more than 90 of 402 Labour MPs have called on Starmer to resign. A leadership contest appears to be imminent.
Among centrist commentators and their social-media fellow travellers alike, one increasingly hears nostalgia for the supposedly steadier age in which Britain expected two or three prime ministers a decade, not six (and counting). To the centrists, this proves Britain has become impossible to govern – a nation of capricious ingrates forever turning on whoever occupies No10.
But perhaps voters are not so irrational. Perhaps they simply do not wish to be governed in the way that Starmer and his Tory predecessors have been governing. Yet when the public complains about policy and implementation, centrists conclude not that the government has failed, but that the public itself is the problem.
Governing with a reasonable level of public consent need not be this tricky. Governments do not operate in total darkness. Polls, elections and public reactions provide fairly clear signals about what voters want.
A government genuinely interested in democratic legitimacy might try listening. Yet modern governments increasingly campaign on what they think the public wants to hear, only to govern as though the electorate had voted for something else entirely. They then react with bafflement when support collapses.
Immigration is the clearest example. For years, voters have consistently said they want lower levels of immigration. For years, politicians have promised to deliver exactly that. David Cameron promised to bring net migration down. Theresa May promised it, too. Boris Johnson rode to power presenting himself as the man to deliver Brexit and who finally understood the electorate’s desire for border control.
Yet, once in office, all three presided over soaring numbers of legal and illegal immigration. Johnson was the most spectacular case. Having styled himself as the tribune of popular frustration with mass immigration, he went on to oversee an influx of foreigners so unprecedented they now bear his name – the ‘Boriswave’.
Starmer’s own pledge to ‘smash the gangs’ has followed the same pattern. There have been headline-grabbing raids, press conferences and operational announcements, yet the broader picture remains one of record crossings and continued public frustration. All of this has unfolded amid a steady stream of reports about serious sexual crimes committed by illegal migrants, deepening the sense that the government is failing to protect the public.
On this issue and many others, voters are not issuing incomprehensible demands. They want lower immigration, affordable energy, safer streets, functioning services and economic stability. These are hardly exotic requests. Yet successive governments have dismissed demands for them as mere ‘populism’.
The very people complaining that Britain has become ‘ungovernable’ are the same people who have spent decades refusing to govern in accordance with the public’s clearly expressed wishes. Presenting themselves as sober managerial technocrats, they increasingly come across as a caste of haughty administrators unwilling to alter course, no matter how loudly voters object.
Any serious disagreement is treated as evidence that the public has been misled, radicalised or insufficiently educated. Politics ceases to be representative and becomes a series of attempts to impose the correct attitudes on hoi polloi.
The complaint that Britain has become ‘ungovernable’ recalls Bertolt Brecht’s famous satirical line that, rather than changing the government, it might be easier to dissolve the people and elect another. Democracy requires our leaders to adapt themselves to public priorities, not the other way around.
Centrists work from the opposite assumption. The policy framework is treated as settled and largely beyond democratic challenge, while the public is expected to regulate itself accordingly. When voters refuse to comply, their demands are treated not as legitimate democratic claims, but as evidence that democracy itself is malfunctioning.
Britain is not ungovernable. Britons are perfectly willing to support governments they believe are acting in their interests and responding to their concerns. ‘Ungovernable’ is shorthand for the death of the old centrist assumption that politicians can indefinitely ignore public priorities.
When voters reject this arrangement, centrist commentators diagnose a crisis of democracy. In fact, democracy is the one thing the public is still trying to assert.
James Martin Charlton is an English playwright and director. Follow him on X @jmc_fire.
Tesco’s CEO pay increased by almost a million last year from £9.93m to £10.8m. Fat cat salaries and the profits of privatised essentials show the cost of living crisis is manufactured. In fact, Tesco sets a stark example.
Manufactured, not a real ‘cost of living’
The real cost of living is when essentials come at cost price. Whether that’s supermarkets, housing, water or energy, the concept remains. But the supermarket giant Tesco made £3.2bn in operating profit in 2025/26. Also, its CEO’s pay packet, which includes his bonus, is entirely unnecessary. Instead, we should have cost price supermarkets. This would avoid middleman wealth extraction.
And when it comes to housing, the average private renter spends an average of £902 a month. That accounts for 41% of a £2,200 take-home salary. In total, this adds up to £119 billion a year across 11 million renters.
Instead, we should have cost price housing. That means the person can pay back the cost of building and designing the house in affordable monthly payments. Then, the person can enjoy full home ownership. This would end the housing bubble and bring down prices across the board. Much like Tesco could lead the way in supermarkets by implementing similar affordability principles.
Easy money, extractive practises
The alternative approach demonstrates that the current ‘cost of living crisis’ is manufactured. That’s because landlords would no longer be extracting over a hundred billion per year in rent that doesn’t go towards home ownership for the tenant, and retailers such as Tesco wouldn’t be able to profit excessively from essentials.
Water and energy companies are also making significant profit that further shows the ‘cost of living crisis’ is manufactured by the current system. In 2022/23, water utilities in the UK made £1.7bn — almost double what they made in 2018/19. And in the first quarter of 2026, BP more than doubled its profits. Clearly, the same trend is seen with Tesco in food retail.
Modernising the UK could further lower costs. That’s through automating industries like farming and vehicles. Re-imagining the system to ensure people pay cost price for essentials would transform the affordability crisis into one where people have the money to enjoy life.
Featured image via Leon Neal/Getty Images
By James Wright
More than 71,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition in Gaza as Israel continues to restrict fuel, flour, and humanitarian aid imports, pushing Gaza closer towards famine, TRT World reported.
Israel tightens the squeeze on Gaza imports
Israa Al-Afifi, a pediatrician in Gaza, told TRT World that:
Children have been directly impacted by a policy of starvation . A growing number of children are suffering from malnutrition while the nutritional products and supplements essential for both prevention and treatment have become unavailable
Quds News Network posted pictures of queues at a food distribution point, which included many children — captioned “starvation continues in Gaza”.
Starvation continues in Gaza | Palestinians, including children, crowd around a food distribution point in Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, waiting to receive a meal. pic.twitter.com/VK4qnmT84x
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 15, 2026
Times of Gaza also posted on X, saying :
Officially, Gaza is facing famine once again.
Officially: Gaza is facing famine once again. pic.twitter.com/o6o8fgO7xk
— TIMES OF GAZA (@Timesofgaza) May 16, 2026
Growing bread queues
A fourteen-year-old called Muhammed al-Roubi told Al Jazeera he waits for hours under the beating sun, often returning empty-handed.
View this post on Instagram
Calling attention to the aid squeeze by Israel, the report emphasised that:
Recent shortages stem from Israel’s decision to close the crossings into Gaza on February 28, when Israel launched a joint war with the United States on Iran. The crossings partially reopened after a few days, but traffic through them has been limited.
Israel ultimately decides how much will be let through, despite last year’s “ceasefire” with Hamas stipulating that Israel must significantly ease the restrictions.
Genocide unabated
Israel’s murders in Gaza are continuing unabated. The genocidal entity fatally struck a soup kitchen over the weekend, killing three charity workers.
Journalist Abubaked Abed shared a picture of the strike.
About yesterday in Deir al-Balah, Gaza.
A picture louder than millions of words. pic.twitter.com/oyoj2LZ0cJ
— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) May 18, 2026
The missile strike launched by Israel in Deir al-Balah killed at least three Palestinian people and injured dozens.
Journalist Motasem Dalloul also shared a picture of the attack, saying:
Israeli occupation army claimed it “assassinated armed terrorists” in this attack yesterday.. The two people who were killed in the attack were aid workers distributing cooked rice to the people starved by the Israeli occupation.
Israeli occupation army claimed it “assassinated armed terrorists” in this attack yesterday..
The two persons who were killed in the attack were aid workers distributing cooked rice to the people starved by the Israeli occupation.. pic.twitter.com/feawvUXCQ4
— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) May 18, 2026
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Israel has killed at least 871 people since the so-called ceasefire began last October.
Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its starvation blockade have never paused, despite the supposed ceasefire in place since autumn 2025. Israel is a terror state, and the UK continues to equip and enable it.
By The Canary
Politics
The House | The Global Partnerships Conference is an opportunity to show what Labour stands for
5 min read
Amid the political upheaval of recent weeks, a post from a former colleague caught my eye.
Amid the political upheaval of recent weeks, a post from a former colleague caught my eye.
Alia Al Bwary, a nursery teacher, was killed in an airstrike in Lebanon along with her husband and three-year-old son. Her nine-year-old survived. The International Rescue Committee, the post said, had funded her work and were mourning the loss of a woman who loved her family and her community, and believed in the power of education to bring stability and hope.
This week, the government is hosting a Global Partnerships Conference in London. I fear it will pass unnoticed, a side show while the main event remains the future of our party and country.
But this is to miss an opportunity – for people like Alia, but also for us in the Labour Party.
In the local elections, voters told us repeatedly that they simply don’t know why we’re in government, what we stand for, who we stand with, and how we’ll make their lives better.
When it comes to Britain’s role in the world, voters see our determination to keep us secure in the world, for example by increasing defence spending and boosting homegrown energy production. This is a fundamental necessity of government. But is it enough?
A foreign policy agenda that drives both security and hope, even in this world in turmoil, could be exactly what is needed to answer voters’ doubts. Not a side show but the main event.
Why are we in government? Across the Labour Party we share a core belief that people – here and across the world – should be able to live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect. This belief is under global threat like no time in my life and we are here to fight for it.
What do we stand for? We don’t have to look far for clarity when it comes to foreign policy. It’s right there, in Clause IV of the Labour Party’s Constitution: “Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British people and to co-operating in… international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.”
Who do we stand with? First and foremost, the people of Britain. But when we look internationally, that means three things. First, the global and regional institutions who share our beliefs and priorities. This includes re-embracing the European Union, deepening our defence and security collaboration but also re-building responsible, collective advancement of scientific research, artificial intelligence, the rights of women and girls and so much more.
Second, we stand with like-minded countries from Japan to South Africa, from Jordan to Indonesia, alongside longer standing and still valuable allies like the US, Canada and Australia. We won’t agree with them on everything, but where we do, we must act together.
And third we stand with people like Alia, who share our beliefs our values, and seek to realise people’s potential, alongside their community and their international partners.
How will it help make voters’ lives better? The people of our country – many of whom rejected us at the ballot box last week – rightly expect government to offer them security and hope. It’s been proven repeatedly, from Covid to the economic fallout of the Iran War, that Britain can’t do this in isolation. It is hard when the global order established in the wake of World War II is crumbling. But it can still be achieved through the right proactive, strategic alliances – just look at how we’ve led the Coalition of the Willing in Ukraine to deter Russian threats to our security.
Going back to this week’s Global Partnerships Conference, let’s look briefly at what this means in practice in the sector I know best, which is humanitarian aid.
Why does it matter to government? Because humanitarian aid is a source of stability and a first line of defence. Just look at the work to stop Ebola reaching our shores from West Africa, or the support for Sudanese refugees in Chad, which has meant they can stay alive close to home without risking onward journeys. But also, what could be a more hopeful agenda, aligned with our core belief, than to save and strengthen lives when they’re at risk?
What do we stand for? The Labour Party came into government with a commitment to return aid spending 0.7 per cent of GNI as soon as fiscal circumstances allow. Instead, we’ve seen cuts. The fiscal constraints are real but that shouldn’t constrain our conviction, ambition or expertise. Yvette Cooper is determinedly working to reduce violence against women and girls, but we could stand proud for so much more, from reforming the institutions and frameworks that provide development and climate finance, to championing international humanitarian law.
Who do we stand with? Vital institutions like the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Bank need our time and energy. From the Gulf to Brazil, we can find countries willing to partners in humanitarian delivery. And across the world, people like Alia need us to call out attacks on civilians and play our part in humanitarian response.
How will it help make voters’ lives better? Because it helps keep us secure in a world where problems cross borders, and because it’s the manifestation of the solidarity, tolerance and respect that we stand for as a party and that voters know is our country’s strength.
The stakes could not be higher: If Reform maintains this level of popularity, Nigel Farage is our next Prime Minister, and he’d scrap our remaining aid commitments almost entirely.
Security, stability, but also hope. Even in this troubled world we can strive for that, as Alia knew.
Going out to eat should be a treat, but we never know how clean the restaurant’s ice dispenser is or if the person preparing our food has washed their hands recently – and that can mean trouble.
Even though germs are everywhere and most of them are harmless, some of them can make us sick. So if there are simple strategies to stay safer when we’re dining out, why not use them?
That’s why Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s Am I Doing It Wrong? podcast, asked microbiologist Jason Tetro, aka The Germ Guy, to brief us on what might be lurking at our tables and in the kitchens of even the fanciest restaurants.
During our chat, we learned what to avoid when we’re ordering from the bar, the dirty truth about the “five-second rule” and the number one germiest part of the restaurant.
A few years ago, “I was going around to different places in the city, and I was looking for the germiest items, and when I would go into restaurants, it was always the menus,” Tetro told us.
“The reason for that… was that the menus themselves were not so dirty, it was the cloth that they used to clean the menus,” he said.
Too often menus are cleaned using dirty cloths, which spread the germs from one item to the next, or the cleaning products don’t have time to be effective.
“You can use a detergent, you can use a disinfectant, and that’s great, right? But if you spray it into the cloth, well, you’ve just disinfected your cloth, and, yeah, you’ve maybe disinfected a small area of the cloth while the rest of it is still germy,” Tetro, the author of The Germ Files and The Germ Code, explained. “What you really need to be doing is you need to be taking that disinfectant and putting that onto the menu itself and then letting it sit.”
The sitting is incredibly important.
“We never talk about [this] in the media when we’re talking about hygiene, which is something called ‘contact time,’” he said. “When you spray a disinfectant onto a surface, it has to sit there, and it will say so on the label.”
The contact time to fully disinfect a surface can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes, and if the product isn’t left to sit for the prescribed amount of time, it may not work correctly.
“We did this study, and it’s not with restaurants, but it was actually with gyms. … You looked at the disinfectant and it said ‘leave on for 10 minutes,’” Tetro told us.
“And then we went to the patrons and were like, ‘So, how long do you keep the disinfectant on for?’ And they’re like, ‘Well, we spray it and wipe it. Why?’ [And we told them] ‘Well, it says here in the label, 10 minutes.’ And they’re just like, ‘Oh, my God.’”
Thankfully companies are now making faster-acting disinfectants, and many of them are more natural.
“We’ve got things that are made of hydrogen peroxide and citric acid, as opposed to some of the names that you can’t pronounce,” Tetro noted.
But the high volume of people handling menus combined with the user errors by the folks cleaning them means we could very likely come in contact with a big helping of germs whenever we’re choosing what to order.
“When you’re wiping down a menu, you’ve got to make sure that there’s that contact time, and, of course, [using] a disinfectant wipe for 30 seconds is your best option,” Tetro said. “Unless you’re doing that sort of continually after each and every time someone is touching it, the menus are going to continue being the germiest place in a restaurant.”
Because it’s hard to know exactly how our menu was cleaned (if it was at all), our best bet to stay as germ-free as possible is to wash our hands or use hand sanitiser after we use a menu or, if there’s a menu QR code on the table, use that instead.
And, of course, the same cleaning practices should be used in our homes too. When you’re using disinfectants, make sure you’re reading the labels and if they require prolonged contact time, make sure you’re waiting to wipe until the cleaners have had time to properly and fully do what they’re intended to do.
For more tips on staying safe while dining out, listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more from Jason Tetro, visit his website here.
Need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com, and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.
Andy Burnham leaving his home before going to Wembley to watch the FA Cup Final.Former Labour members are returning to the party to help Andy Burnham win win the crunch Makerfield by-election, HuffPost UK has been told.
Supporters who quit in protest at the direction of the party under Keir Starmer’s leadership are signing up to help the Greater Manchester mayor defeat Reform UK, it is claimed.
“They are all offering to help Andy win the by-election,” a senior Labour source said. “He is attracting support from long-standing members who left over the last two years.”
A pro-Burnham MP confirmed that ex-Labour members have returned to back his bid to return to parliament after nine years.
Burnham has said he wants to become an MP again to “save” the Labour Party, but stopped short of confirming he wants to replace Starmer as leader.
He told the BBC: “We’ve got to see this as a moment to reclaim the Labour Party, to save it from where it’s been. We can’t just carry on as we are.”
Burnham has yet to be confirmed as Labour’s by-election candidate, although the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) has said it will not block him, as they did when he tried to stand in Gorton and Denton earlier this year.
Josh Simons won the seat for Labour at the last election with a majority of 5,399 from Reform.
Simons announced on Thursday that he was standing down to make way for Burnham, who is expected to challenge Starmer if he wins the by-election, which takes place on June 18.
On BBC 1′s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Simons said he had done it in the “best interests” of his party, community and country.
He said: “I think doing things for your community and your country that are very much not in your own personal reasons is the kind of thing we should do in politics sometimes.
“This has been a really tough decision for me and my family. I have very young kids, I’ve got a three-week-old baby.
“This was not an easy thing to do, and I wouldn’t have done it unless I really, really believed, at the end of the day, that this was in the best interests of the Labour Party, my community, and most importantly, the country.”
It was revealed last week that 1,600 new members had joined Labour in the wake of the party’s drubbing in the elections on May 7.
Party sources claimed the vast majority had done so to support the prime minister.
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.
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Donald Trump has issued a fresh genocidal threat to Iran if the country’s regime does not agree to a peace deal to permanently end the war.
The US president said “there won’t be anything left of them” in a post on Truth Social.
Although a ceasefire remains in place in the conflict, the Strait – which used to carry one-fifth of the global oil supply – remains closed to maritime traffic.
Trump said: “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”
Despite Trump’s repeated threats – and erroneous claims that America has won the war – no peace deal has yet been agreed to end the war.
The president sparked a furious backlash when he threatened to end Iranian civilisation.
Keir Starmer told MPs: “In relation to the language about destroying a civilisation, can I really be clear with this house – that was wrong.
“A threat to Iranian civilians in that way is wrong. These are civilians, let’s remember, who’ve suffered immeasurable harm by the regime in Iran for many, many long years, and that’s why they are words and phrases that I would never use on behalf of this government, which are guided by our principles and our values throughout all of this.”
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.
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