Politics
How To Respond When Kids Say They Hate You
Hearing your child shout “I hate you” can be excruciating. I know, I’ve been there. Usually they’re in complete emotional turmoil – logic has officially left the building, as rage, frustration or disappointment takes control.
It’s hard not to take it personally, but usually when they are using this kind of language, it doesn’t actually mean they hate you. They are simply struggling to express their feelings or needs.
What it means when kids say ‘I hate you’
Psychotherapist Alison Roy suggests the phrase can mean “many things” – but mainly that there are “strong feelings around” which is actually a “healthy” sign. In this moment, they are “throwing something difficult to their parent/s to catch” (and you are their safe space, so they trust you can handle it).
The therapist urges parents to try not to take these statements literally or personally.
She suggests hate could mean “I feel out of control” or “you get to make all the decisions and I hate feeling powerless” or “I wish I didn’t have to feel so uncomfortable”.
Some young people might also be finding it hard to love themselves and their own self-loathing or frustrations are then projected onto their parents. “It’s important to take time to understand what’s behind an outburst,” she adds.
“As psychotherapists we use the term projections to describe feelings which can’t be managed or contained and therefore get given to someone else – usually someone the young person feels can take it.”
Brieanne Doyle, a BACP therapist and founder of Dwell Therapy, notes that this strong language is a way for children to “get our attention and to express their feelings/needs”.
“Behind the ‘I hate you,’ is a child who is scared, frustrated, angry,” she explains, “and they need help navigating these feelings and learning how to express them appropriately.”
The best ways to respond when kids say they hate you
It can be tempting to argue back (“how dare you!”) or immediately punish them (“no more iPad!”), but experts suggest parents should take the opportunity to quickly connect with themselves instead.
“What are you feeling right now? Annoyed, angry, sad? All very normal emotions, but right now, you cannot attend to yourself – so, notice the feeling and tell yourself you’ll come back to that later,” says Doyle.
Dr Becky Kennedy, clinical psychologist and founder of Good Inside, said sometimes the best response is to say or do nothing after your child says they hate you. “When we do nothing … it just sits between us. My kid has a much higher chance of re-owning what they said because I’m just sturdy in that moment,” she explained on The Huberman Lab podcast.
If your child is younger, you can get down to their level and calmly acknowledge their feelings. Doyle suggests you could say something like: “I can see you’re really frustrated right now. How can we help you calm down?”
She explains: “We are first trying to connect with the child – they are upset and it is the adult’s job to create a space of containment for their very big emotions.”
Sometimes the offer of a cuddle helps these big moments blow over. Other times they might just need a bit of space, or for you to silently sit nearby until they’ve calmed a bit. If they keep saying they hate you, you can tell them you’re leaving the room and will come back to speak to them shortly.
Sometimes taking time and acknowledging the big feelings but not absorbing everything or taking them personally can shift things.
– Alison Roy
Once they’re calm, you can explore where the feelings came from. “Where possible, try to find out what is behind the words – what feelings are being expressed and has something happened which has left your young person with big feelings they can’t deal with,” says Roy.
“Sometimes taking time and acknowledging the big feelings but not absorbing everything or taking them personally can shift things.”
Now you can offer the correction. Doyle suggests you could say something like: “You were really upset and you said something very hurtful. In this house we don’t use words to hurt each other. When you are ready I’d appreciate an apology for what you said, which really hurt my feelings.”
You can also set some “ground rules” together, says Roy, for sharing feelings and managing expectations in the future. For example, you could say: “I get that you were disappointed but I know there’s another way you can say that to me.” This way you’re validating their feelings but also setting a boundary.
“It’s important for them to know that you can manage these big feelings and they will be watching you to see how you manage them and what you are modelling for them,” she adds.
Lastly, as being told “I hate you” can be painful, don’t forget to check in with yourself later on, says Doyle, revisiting how you felt when your child said it and considering what you need to offer yourself: “A kind word, a reminder that you are a good enough parent, a quiet moment to yourself, sharing this with your parenting partner or a trusted friend, perhaps even with your own parent?”
She ends: “This ensures that you do not store up all the feelings associated with the phrase and then explode at your child some day when you cannot take any more.”
The post The tyranny of ‘public health’ knows no bounds appeared first on spiked.
At times such as these, of extreme social disorientation and moral fragmentation, the public cries out for meaning, commonality, a light in the dark. Well bad luck, public, because what you get is another Banksy.
Banksy, the world’s best-known anonymous artist, has seen fit to gift the world another piece of art, in this case a sculpture. It depicts a suited man carrying an oversized flag, the flag obscuring the man’s vision as he is about to march, blinded, off the statue’s supporting plinth.
The statue appeared overnight on Wednesday in Waterloo Place in the St James’s district of Westminster – a street, as the BBC helpfully explains, ‘designed to celebrate imperialism and military dominance in the 1800s’.
What could it all mean? Well, if Banksy has a skill at all, it is in being sledgehammer-obvious.
Being obvious – making things people understand – is surprisingly difficult. But where being obvious takes real talent is in making difficult ideas accessible. Banksy does not do this. Banksy takes easy ideas and reveals, through heavy-handed metaphors, just how breathtakingly obvious they are.
The badness of Banksy’s art is not a bug but a feature. It is designed to go down nice and easy, to be as inclusive and non-threatening as humanly possible. Its trick is to unite people around a lowest-common-denominator premise while convincing them that they are razor-sharp semiologists who can deconstruct the floating chain of signs and signifiers. Banksy flatters mediocre thinkers that they are the in crowd, and smarter than the next guy.
As a sculptor, Banksy wears his artistic heritage lightly. Not for Banksy the subtle homoerotic contrapposto of a Michelangelo, nor the witty repurposing of objects à la Picasso, nor even the brute scale and tension of a Richard Serra. Rather, Banksy takes the aesthetics of mass-produced garden-centre ornaments and fills them with the moral complexity of a Catchphrase clue. Roy Walker’s gentle encouragement to nervous game-show contestants, ‘Say what you see!’, is also the best way of unlocking the meaning of a Banksy.
Let’s say what we see in Banksy’s latest. We are so blinded by nationalism that we risk putting ourselves in danger. Jackpot! An idea so facile it barely merits the resin it took to cast the statue.
Nevertheless, Banksy’s art fulfils an important social function, which is to reassure worried, like-minded people that they are not alone. In this case, people who feel that strong national sentiment is misguided and dangerous – and there are plenty of them – can take comfort that this is a legitimate feeling. Banksy’s gift to them is to remove any iota of thought that might cloud the issue, any possibility of uncomfortable doubt.
Banksy skillfully avoids any chance of misunderstanding through the location of the statue and the timing of its deployment. St James’s – establishment, militarism, yeah? – in the run-up to the local elections, because politics, yeah? There is on the nose, and there is Banksy.
And if you are worried that a hefty, spontaneous and unauthorised statue could be a form of vandalism, don’t be. There is certainly no risk of the authorities seeing it that way. Westminster City Council has already given the statue its unofficial blessing, with a spokesperson telling the BBC: ‘We’re excited to see Banksy’s latest sculpture in Westminster, making a striking addition to the city’s vibrant public art scene.’ Truly, as an act of subversion, the stakes could not be lower.
Banksy’s art is dissent for the lanyard classes. It is a way of turning their own contempt for the working classes, and working-class values such as patriotism, into something less obviously judgemental, ugly and upsetting to their own psychic health. Disdain becomes sophistication, and snobbery a self-contained culture. In an age of virtue-signalling, Banksy’s success lies in making both the virtue and the signal gobsmackingly explicit.
Alex Dale is a designer based in London.
Claire Burchett asks how can UK institutions and parties adapt to Reform UK gaining more power at a national and local level and considers what can be learned from countries in Western Europe where far-right parties have typically been more electorally successful.
On 7 May 2026, local elections will be held in the UK for over 4,850 councillors against the backdrop of increasing dissatisfaction with the Labour government, and a growing broader appeal of the Greens and of the far-right party Reform UK. The UK’s first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system has historically prevented far-right parties from gaining substantial power at a national or local level. However, if this were to change, the UK has limited experience in monitoring and managing the far right.
Reform UK, and UKIP before it, have obtained the most substantial results for a far-right party under FPP. The more overtly racist British National Party (BNP) peaked in the 2006-2007 local elections with dozens of local councillors but never had a sitting Member of Parliament (MP). Following the 2024 general election and high-profile defections from the Conservative Party, there are now 8 Reform UK MPs. The upcoming local elections are likely to strengthen the party further. This raises the question of how UK institutions and parties will adapt to this.
Far-right parties in Western Europe have generally been more electorally successful in Proportional Representation (PR) systems on the continent. This means institutions and mainstream political parties have had to learn to adapt to a far-right presence through institutional safeguards and political strategies. Despite variation in the radicality of these far-right parties, and differences in historical context and party systems, what can the UK learn, if anything, from these experiences?
The most common strategy is that of a refusal to cooperate, known as the “Brandmauer” in Germany or the “cordon sanitaire” in France. While the PR system gives the far-right easier access to institutions, other parties refusing to cooperate with them means they are often kept away from any real power. This kept the French National Rally in third place in the 2024 elections, and largely holds in Germany. The UK has some experience with this strategy: the two BNP Members of the European Parliament were isolated by other UK parties in 2009, and in last year’s elections local councillors in Cornwall refused to work with Reform UK. It is, however, a divisive strategy: it risks boosting the ‘victimhood’ narrative of the far right and can increase voter alienation. However, without it there is the risk of normalising the far right. Another problem is one of containment. It is easy to isolate a party when it has only a few seats in parliament, but this is much harder to do as the party gains seats. Under FPP, it is even more fragile, as Reform UK could eventually win a majority. Finally, isolating the far right only works if all other parties agree to do so, and is undermined by the increasing adoption and mainstreaming of far-right discourse.
A more extreme tool is that of banning a party. This remains controversial, with sceptics pointing to the anti-democratic implications of banning a party with substantial electoral support. There is also no guarantee that a ban would remove a party. In Belgium, the Flemish Bloc was effectively forced to disband after the Belgian High Court ruled that it was racist, but was then able to rebrand as Flemish Interest. In the UK, the most common way to ban a political party would be its proscription under the Terrorism Act 2000 or de-registration by the Electoral Commission, which would prevent it from running in elections. The latter is usually used to punish parties for not following the Political Parties, Referendums and Elections Act (PPERA). The BNP was de-registered under PPERA in 2016 for not paying the annual £25 registration fee, but reinstated a month later. With much less precedent in the UK and with Reform UK currently polling at 25%, this would be highly contested and not prevent a future iteration of the party.
There is also a role to play for public sector institutions. For instance, the media can contribute to increasing the salience and acceptability of far-right issues. In Francophone Belgium, the media refuses to platform far-right politicians and this has had a significant impact on their popularity. While effective, this would not be possible in the UK due to the BBC’s impartiality. Moreover, Reform UK may now be too big to be contained in such a way, and this would not prevent its visibility on social media.
Another tool, which is unique to Germany, is that of monitoring extremist groups and parties. The domestic intelligence authority, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), can observe parties and pass surveillance and reporting to the police. The UK’s closest equivalent to the BfV is the Security Service (MI5), although the BfV specifically focuses on anti-constitutional behaviour, while MI5’s focus remains broader national security and terrorism. Individual cases can be reported to the police for, for example, inciting racial hatred, as was done for UKIP’s notorious “Breaking Point” poster in 2016. Thus, reporting is ad hoc and reactive, and there is a limited institutional framework for monitoring potential anti-democratic behaviour, which Reform UK has already demonstrated through social media posts containing support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson and overtly racist and misogynistic views, and its status as a private company with limited transparency over decision-making.
While the BNP gave the UK some experience of managing a far-right party in governmental institutions, the party never left the electoral margins, so Reform UK presents a novel challenge. The tools developed in France, Germany, and Belgium have emerged from decades of managing a far-right presence, which FPP has so far prevented in the UK. However, while these can curb the far right, they cannot remove it completely, especially in the face of deeper political trends like dissatisfaction with democracy and the mainstreaming of far-right ideas. The UK would be well advised to reflect on how to develop its own democratic resilience, for instance, through guidelines for the media on how to report on the far right, a cross-party consensus on how to respond to the far right in local councils and parliament, and an infrastructure for oversight and monitoring of anti-democratic behaviour. The local elections will be a good time to start this process.
By Claire Burchett, PhD Candidate, Department of European & International Studies, King’s College London.
Netflix has announced that its hit spy drama The Night Agent is coming to an end.
But first, the show will go out with a bang, with one last season.
On Monday, the streaming giant announced that the fourth run of The Night Agent had begun production, and that this would be the show’s final outing.
Creator Shawn Ryan said in a statement: “Ever since the initial success of The Night Agent, I’ve been obsessed with eventually delivering a proper and thrilling conclusion to the show and to Peter Sutherland’s journey.
“I’m so grateful to Netflix and Sony Pictures Television for partnering with me on The Night Agent and for giving us the space to deliver a definitive final season to our worldwide legion of fans.”
“We are hard at work to complete our story and to make our final season one our fans will never forget,” he added.
Christopher Saunders/Netflix
Based on the novel of the same name, The Night Agent premiered in 2023, introducing Gabriel Basso as FBI agent Peter Sutherland.
It eventually became something of a sleeper hit, with its first season notably becoming the third most-watched inaugural run for any Netflix original at that time, as well as becoming one of the most-watched shows of that year.
A second and third season followed in 2025 and 2026, respectively, with Netflix renewing it for a fourth run back in March.
Ryan said at the time: “It’s been a wild ride filming The Night Agent in five countries across three continents to this point and we’re so thrilled that the adventures of Peter Sutherland will continue into season four.
“Our writers, our cast and our crew stand ready to answer the call to bring our incredible fans even more twists, turns and thrills.”
The first three seasons of The Night Agent are now streaming on Netflix.
I want to be honest with you, because I think you deserve that. When I first heard about Reform UK’s new ‘Vote Green, Get Illegals’ policy – the plan to put migrant detention centres in Green-held constituencies rather than Reform ones – my instinctive reaction was discomfort. Real discomfort. I sat with it. I turned it over. I talked it through with friends, with colleagues. Because that is what you do when something troubles you, rather than simply reaching for the nearest banner and marching.
And what I found, when I sat with it long enough, was that my discomfort was pointing in entirely the wrong direction.
Reform’s plan, announced over the weekend by party chairman Zia Yusuf and leader Nigel Farage, is straightforward: a future Reform government would build detention centres capable of holding at least 24,000 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. No such facility will be placed in any Reform-held constituency or council area. Green seats and councils, whose constituents voted for what the Green Party calls ‘a world without borders’, will be prioritised for detention centres. Reform has already published a draft Mass Deportation Detention Act. It means business.
The reaction has been, and I say this as someone who tries very hard to take other people’s feelings seriously, extraordinarily overwrought. The word ‘dystopian’ has been used so many times this week that it has lost whatever meaning it once had. The left has reached, with impressive reflex speed, for comparisons that I will not dignify by repeating. I understand why people feel strongly. I genuinely do. Strong feelings about where people live, about community, about safety – these are not irrational. They are, in fact, exactly the point.
What I find harder to understand, and this is where I have had to really interrogate my own instinct to be fair to everyone in the room, is the complaint from Rupert Lowe’s direction. Lowe, who now leads the Restore Britain party (having departed Reform in some acrimony), called the policy ‘petty nonsense’. He accused Reform of ‘vindictively target[ing] Brits in potential Green constituencies’. I have read this several times, because I wanted to make sure I was being fair to him. But Lowe’s own published proposals speak of making conditions so deliberately harsh that migrants leave voluntarily. His objection is not that Reform is being too tough. It is something more personal than that, and I think most reading this will recognise the dynamic: it is the complaint of someone who wanted a fight on his own terms, furious that someone else has set the agenda.
But here is the question I cannot stop asking, and it is not a comfortable one: who has been living with the consequences of our immigration policy up to now, and did anyone ask them how they felt about it? Because I know the answer, and it troubles me more than any detention centre ever could.
Those women and men who noticed, who raised their hands and said, quietly at first and then less quietly, that something in their street or their town or their child’s school had changed in ways nobody had prepared them for, were not treated with the seriousness their observations deserved. They were instead managed. They were reassured. They were, in the particular way that our political culture has perfected over 30 years, made to feel that their anxiety was the problem. The mothers tracking pressure on GP appointments, the women on night shifts noticing the changed texture of their neighbourhoods, the daughters trying to navigate social housing for elderly parents in areas absorbing numbers nobody had thought to mention: their experience was real. Their discomfort was not a personality defect.
‘Refugees Welcome’ signs, meanwhile, have long appeared in windows of houses in postcodes where no refugees were being sent. The consensus in favour of open borders was built by people whose daily lives were not affected by it. I do not say this in bitterness – I say it because it is simply, plainly true, and pretending otherwise has been doing real harm to real people for a very long time.
I worry about things. That is not something I apologise for. And what I worry about, when I think about this policy, is not the Green voter in a comfortable suburb who will write a strongly worded letter, and man a street stall. It is the woman in a town that has been absorbing dispersed asylum seekers through hotels and HMOs (houses in multiple occupation) for years – without consultation, without notice, without so much as a community meeting. The chaos of the status quo is not neutral. It is not kind. It has consequences, and those consequences have been falling on the people least able to make them stop.
Secure detention before orderly deportation is not, whatever this week’s headlines suggest, a form of cruelty. It is a form of clarity. It is the managed, legal and humane alternative to the sprawling and unaccountable system we have been living with. It is not ‘barbarism’ to detain people who have broken the law – it is administration. The barbarism has been the pretence that the current system is working.
And should democratic choices carry consequences? I think, if we are honest with ourselves, the answer has to be yes. We accept it everywhere else. We accept that communities voting for development get development, that those who choose certain policies inherit their results. The Greens have been entirely transparent about what they want: more asylum seekers and no borders. That is their honest position and voters are free to choose it. But the idea that you can vote for a borderless world and be wholly shielded from its practical consequences – the holding facilities and the processing centres – asks rather a lot of those who voted differently.
I have spoken this week with Reform members in areas their party doesn’t yet control. I expected anxiety. I found something closer to practicality – several have even written to suggest local former Royal Air Force bases they felt would be appropriate. People are more resilient, and more reasonable, than the people who claim to speak for them tend to assume.
I did not come to this position easily. I sat with my discomfort, as I said at the start, and I took it seriously. But sometimes what feels uncomfortable is simply the sensation of something true pressing against something we would prefer not to examine. The fury of the response to this policy has been, in the end, the most persuasive argument for it. Those who have spent 30 years ensuring that the consequences of their choices fell on other people are not well placed to lecture the rest of us about fairness.
I think you know that. I think you’ve known it for a while.
Gawain Towler is a commentator and an elected board member of Reform UK.
Britney Spears’ legal team has spoken out after the pop star pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
In early March, the chart-topping singer was pulled over by the police and arrested while out driving in California.
After checking herself into a rehab treatment facility, it was subsequently announced that Britney had been charged with a misdemeanour of driving while under the influence.
Her lawyer, Michael A. Goldstein, told Rolling Stone on Monday that Britney’s DUI charge had been “dismissed” at a hearing – where she was not in attendance – and that she had instead pleaded guilty to reckless driving.
“She’s doing well,” Goldstein said outside the courthouse. “It was reduced. The DUI was dismissed. She entered a plea to reckless driving.”
He continued: “We appreciate the district attorney recognising the positive steps Britney has taken to help herself, and we expect that she’ll continue to do so.”
Per Rolling Stone, Britney has been sentenced to 12 months of summary probation, during which she will be subjected to searches by law enforcement while driving.
She must also continue her “mental health and substance treatment”, which is said to include “weekly meetings with her psychologist and twice-monthly visits with her psychiatrist”, in addition to a three-month DUI course.
Following her arrest, Britney’s spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “This was an unfortunate incident that is completely inexcusable. Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life.
“Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time. Her boys are going to be spending time with her. Her loved ones are going to come up with an overdue needed plan to set her up for success for well being.”
Over the weekend, Britney returned to Instagram for the first time since entering rehab, posting footage of herself and her son, as well as an old clip of her dancing at her home from a year earlier.
She also posted a graphic with the slogan: “Your energy is magnetic, goddess.”
The Pussycat Dolls have announced they’ll no longer be moving forward with the planned American leg of their world tour.
Back in March, it was confirmed that the chart-topping girl group would be reuniting as a three-piece for a string of shows that would take them across North America and Europe, concluding with a run of performances around the UK and Ireland.
However, following poor sales for their shows in the US and Canada, the group announced on Monday night that they’d had to make a tough decision.
“We want to share an important update with you,” they began. “When we announced the PCD Forever Tour, we hoped to bring the show to fans across the world.
“After taking an honest look at the North American run, we’ve made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to cancel all but one of the North America dates.”
While a one-off performance at WeHo Pride in Los Angeles is still going ahead in June, the PCD Forever tour will officially now kick off in Copenhagen, Denmark in September.
“Our UK and European dates are still moving forward as planned,” the band insisted, pointing out that the “response has been incredible, with several shows already sold out”.
They added: “We are putting everything into making this show a true celebration of the music and the memories, for the fans who have been with us from the beginning and those discovering us for the first time.“We’re working hard to create the kind of show we’ve always dreamed of bringing to you. We cannot wait to bring this reunion to Europe and make these nights unforgettable.”
The current line-up of the Pussycat Dolls consists of Ashley Roberts, Kimberley Wyatt and frontwoman Nicole Scherzinger.
Former band member Carmit Bachar recently admitted she was disappointed to not be invited back for the planned reunion.
Meanwhile, Jessica Sutta – who now describes herself as a “mommy, wife and activist”, and is outspoken in her pro-MAGA and anti-vaccine stances – also insisted that while she was “never planning to return” to the Pussycat Dolls “under the current circumstances”, and is “still unable to dance due to ongoing health issues”, the reunion announcement still proved “difficult” for her.
Zack Polanski’s popularity has plummeted in the wake of the row over his reaction to the Golders Green attacks.
The Green Party leader was forced to apologise after appearing to criticise the police’s response to the incident.
Shilome Rand, 34, and Moshe Shine, 76, were left seriously injured in what police have described as a terrorist incident last Wednesday.
A video of the incident posted showed Metropolitan Police apprehending the man suspected of carrying out the attacks.
Polanski retweeted a post on X which said: “So essentially [Met commissioner Mark Rowley’s] officers were repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by taser.”
That led to criticism from Rowley, who wrote to Polanski condemning “observers with little experience of policing in the real world” for criticising his officers.
Polling released by More in Common on Tuesday – two days before voters go to the polls in crucial elections across the UK – showed the Green Party leader’s approval rating has fallen by 14 points to minus 27 in the past week.
It means he now has a lower rating than Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey and Nigel Farage, though remains comfortably ahead of Keir Starmer, who is by far the least popular leader with an approval rating of minus 45.
Responding to the findings, More in Common director Luke Tryl said the row was making some people “think twice” about voting Green.
He said: “Two things have happened. Zack Polanski’s negatives have gone up but some people, particularly younger people, have moved to being neutral about him.
“The Greens are seen as a hopeful party, quite a nice party. I just think that what some of the candidates have said about antisemitism and Zack perhaps not being robust enough on that, and responding in the way he did to the police, is making some people think twice.”
However, despite the row, the Greens are still forecast to gain round 600 English council seats in Thursday’s elections.
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Good news for tired gardeners: no-mow May is upon us.
Experts like Monty Don recommend leaving our strimmers and mowers in the shed this month – even as late as the end of June – and letting our gardens grow wild instead.
Here are 13 bee-rilliant (sorry) reasons to lay down the blades:
1) Dandelions are brilliant for bees
Because of their open shape, bees find it really easy to extract much-needed pollen from yellow dandelions.
Calling the so-called “weed” our “most undervalued wildflower,” the Scottish Wildlife Trust added they also fuel other pollinators like butterflies, hover flies, day flying moths and solitary bees.
2) Longer grass provides much-needed shelter
The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and Merseyside said that long grass is important for invertebrates, like insects, that “in turn provide food for birds and mammals such as hedgehogs″.
Additionally, some species, like craneflies and sawflies, which rely on longer grass to flourish, are “particularly important for the survival of young chicks”.
The common meadow brown butterfly lays its eggs in taller grass clumps, too.
3) It could help to absorb carbon
Speaking to The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, wildlife gardener Jack Wallington explained that “Wilder lawns are probably the most sustainable usable surface people can create because they absorb carbon as they grow”.
The Royal Horticultural Society added that “when you stop weekly mowing, your lawn starts on its journey to becoming natural grassland – one of the world’s most efficient carbon sinks, able to lock up over three tonnes of carbon per hectare”.
4) It can make gardening easier
Yes, of course, you’re already down one task: mowing. But speaking to HuffPost UK previously, Helen Bostock, a senior wildlife specialist at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), said that letting your garden grow wild can make it more self-sufficient.
“A vibrant garden ecosystem is one that requires [fewer] inputs from gardeners – when natural predators are keeping the aphids in check, [fewer] sprays are needed,” she shared.
“It is also more productive – when insect pollinators are in abundance, our fruit trees will set heavier, higher quality fruit.”
5) It can help to restore the UK’s dying grassland meadows
Plantlife, the organisation that invented No Mow May, did so in response to the UK losing 97% of its grassland meadows since the 1930s.
Letting your lawn breathe increases its biodiversity and number of wildflowers.
6) No-mow May can look however you want it to
Not only is it adaptable to a range of environments (native wildflowers flourish in “poor” soil), but it can suit all different needs, too.
If you need to keep a path or verge clear, that’s OK: it’s not an “all or nothing” policy.
The RHS said that “You can ‘no mow’ your whole lawn or just part of it. Leave it long until at least August for maximum wildlife benefit.”
With speculation mounting about whether or not she and Harry Styles are engaged, Zoë Kravitz had a fun way of keeping the rumours at bay while attending this year’s Met Gala.
Zoë and Harry were first linked in the press in the summer of 2025, and found themselves at the centre of even more rumours last month, when the Big Little Lies star was pictured wearing what appeared to be an especially eye-catching engagement ring.
Following this, People magazine cited an undisclosed “source” who claimed the couple had told a “small circle” around them that they were engaged after around eight months of dating.
Since then, both she and the As It Was singer have kept schtum about the rumours, and – perhaps sensing it could be a moment on the Met Ball red carpet, decided to take matters into her own hands.
Or, rather, her own hand. Because Zoë’s Met Gala look for 2026 consisted of a black lace dress boasting both pockets and long sleeves, so she spent the whole night posing with her left hand completely obscured.
In other words, photographers couldn’t get a shot of what may or may not have been an engagement ring (although pictures taken from inside the event showed that she was not wearing the ring in question for the event).
Zoë has previously dated Penn Badgley and Karl Glusman.
She previously directed in the film Blink Twice, and was engaged to co-star Channing Tatum between 2023 and 2024.
Meanwhile, Harry has previously been linked to a number of famous faces, including Olivia Wilde, Taylor Russell, Olivia Dean and Taylor Swift.
Earlier this year, Harry told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe while promoting his latest album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally: “I had a real honest conversation with myself about, ‘OK, in five years, what do I want my life to look like?’. And then how do I make changes to aim at that?
“I want to have great friendships with people. I want a family. I want these things. It just allowed me to go like, ‘Okay, what do I have to do to create space to allow these things to happen? I can’t just expect them to just happen to me’.”
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