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Thursday, February 02, 2023

Depression signs may look different among Black women, new study finds

Meredith Clark
Wed, 1 February 2023

A new study has shown that Black women may experience less obvious signs of depression.

While symptoms of depression can look different for everyone, a new study led by researchers at New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing and Columbia University School of Nursing has suggested that depression symptoms among Black women may be overlooked or go untreated by doctors.

The study, which was published on 13 December, analysed depression symptoms among 227 Black women. The data was originally collected as part of the Intergenerational Impact of Psychological and Genetic Factors on Blood Pressure (InterGEN) study, which surveyed Black mothers and children in order to understand the genetic, psychological, and environmental factors that contribute to high blood pressure.

Researchers found that Black women with depression were more likely to report that they were experiencing physical symptoms – such as fatigue, insomnia, irritability, and decreased libido – as well as symptoms of self-criticism and self-blame.

Common symptoms of depression have been known to include low mood, loss of interest in activities, changes in appetite or sleep, and feelings of hopelessness or worthlessness. However, researchers noted that an overwhelming amount of studies on depression symptoms have been “predominantly conducted in white people,” which increases the chances that signs of depression may be missed among BIPOC people or other racial minority populations.

“Based on our findings, it’s possible that health care providers may miss depression symptoms in Black women, resulting in underdiagnosis and undertreatment,” said Dr Nicole Perez, postdoctoral associate at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing and the lead author of the study, in a release.

In fact, Black Americans – and Black women in general – are more likely to have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness than white Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, only one in three Black adults who need mental health care actually receive it. This is possibly because of the many barriers people of colour face when it comes to receiving mental health treatment, such as proper health insurance, socioeconomic disparities, or negative attitudes and stigma towards mental illness.

To make matters worse, less than two per cent of American Psychological Association members are Black – according to Mental Health America – which can possibly lead to instances of implicit bias or even medical racism among doctors and patients.

“My hope is that these findings contribute to the growing dialogue of how depression can look different from person to person,” said Perez, “And raise awareness of the need for more research in historically understudied and minoritized populations, so that we can better identify symptoms and reduce missed care and health disparities.”

GOP REPS COVERED IN BLOOD

Tyre Nichols' mum says 'blood will be on hands' of Congress if bill limiting police officer immunity not passed

Wed, 1 February 2023

Tyre Nichols' mother said "blood is going to be on the hands" of congressmen and women if they fail to pass a bill that would limit immunity for US police officers.

Vice President Kamala Harris and celebrated civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton urged Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act at Mr Nichols' funeral in Memphis on Thursday.

RowVaughn Wells, the mother of the 29-year-old who died three days after being beaten by police, said: "We need to get that bill passed. The next child that dies, the blood is going to be on their hands."

She paid tribute to her son, saying: "Tyre was a beautiful person and for this to happen to him is unimaginable.

"The only thing that’s keeping me going is thinking my son was sent here on assignment from God. I guess now his assignment is done and he's been taken home."

Mr Nichols' siblings also paid tribute to their brother. His sister said: "He was robbed of his life, his passions and his talents but not his light."

She said when she heard the news: "I lost my faith, I cried, I screamed at God asking how he could let this happen.

"My cries turned to anger and my anger turned to deep sorrow when those monsters murdered my baby brother. They left me completely heartbroken.

"My family will never be the same and I will always love my baby brother forever."

After being invited to the pulpit by Rev Sharpton, Ms Harris said: "Let our memory of Tyre shine a light on the path towards peace and justice."

Ms Harris praised the "courage and strength" of Tyre Nichols' family.

"We mourn with you and the people of this country mourn with you.

"Mothers around the world when their babies are born pray to God when they hold that child that that body and that life will be safe for the rest of his life.

"Yet we have a mother and a father who mourn the life of a young man who should be here today.

"They have a grandson who now does not have a father. His brothers and sisters will lose the love of growing old with their baby brother.

"When we look at this situation, this is a family who lost their son and their brother through an act of violence at the hands and the feet of people who had been charged with keeping them safe," she said.

"Was he not also entitled to the right to be safe?"

Rev Sharpton criticised the police officers who beat Mr Nichols.

Recalling the death of Martin Luther King in Memphis 55 years ago when he was campaigning for the rights of black workers, he asked: "In the city that they slayed the dreamer, what has happened to the dream?

"Five black men who wouldn't have had a job in the police department... in the city that Dr King lost his life, not far away from that balcony, you beat a brother to death.

"There's nothing more insulting and offensive. You didn't get on a police department by yourself. People had to march and go to jail and some lost their lives to open the doors for you.

"How dare you act like that sacrifice was for nothing."

Read more: Punched, kicked and Tasered - Timeline of violent arrest of Tyre Nichols

The families of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, who were killed by police officers in 2020 - as well as Oscar-winning director Spike Lee - were among hundreds of mourners in the church.

The funeral took place in Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis with the church's celebration choir singing a chorus of "we love you Tyre" as mourners entered the church.

Photographs taken by Mr Nichols, as well as images of him as a child and doing his beloved hobby of skateboarding were shown to mourners along with a quote attributed to the 29-year-old: "My vision is to bring my viewers deep into what I am seeing through my eye and out through my lens."

Mr Nichols' black coffin was draped with a white bouquet of flowers and a painting of Martin Luther King and other prominent figures and slogans was placed beside it.

Read more:
The deadly assault draws painful parallels for Americans who are no strangers to videos of police violence

'I'm not going to stop' fighting for justice, says Tyre Nichols' mother

Mr Nichols was aggressively punched, kicked and hit with a baton by several Memphis police officers after he was pulled over in a traffic stop on 7 January.

Five police officers have so far been charged with second-degree murder and fired while two other officers were suspended from duty.

Memphis Fire Department also fired three staff members after an investigation found Mr Nichols was left without medical attention for almost 15 minutes after the assault.

Protests have taken place in several US cities after the footage of the attack was released.

Finland passes new, progressive trans rights laws on gender recognition

David Mac Dougall
Wed, 1 February 2023

Finland passes new, progressive trans rights laws on gender recognition

Finland has passed a new, progressive rights law which makes it substantially easier for trans people to change their legal gender.

Prime Minister Sanna Marin had said the law was a priority for her government, and on Wednesday it was passed by a large majority in parliament with 113 votes for, 69 against. There were 17 MPs not present for the vote, but no abstentions.

Politicians from Marin's five-party coalition government voted overwhelmingly in favour of the new legislation, although 13 Centre Party MPs voted against. The far-right Finns Party and religious Christian Democrats also opposed it.

The new laws mean transgender people aged 18 and older can legally change their gender by a process of self-declaration, and no longer have to go through an onerous medical and psychiatric approval process first.

Amendments also abolish a provision that required transgender people to provide a medical certificate proving they were infertile or sterilised before the government would recognise their gender identity.

This part of the existing law was intended to keep transgender individuals from having children, and had been widely condemned by human rights groups for many years.

"We were expecting the bill to pass, but in the last few weeks there has been an incredibly strong campaign against the law, especially anti-gender type of rhetoric," said Kerttu Tarjamo, secretary general of Seta, Finland's oldest and most respected LGBTQI+ rights organisation.

Some of the arguments opponents of the new legislation used to try and stop it are familiar 'wedge issues' that have been deployed in other countries, like Scotland.

"They said this will open the gates for cis-gendered men to harass women in changing rooms, they had arguments about prisons and tried to use the UK as an example," Tarjamo told Euronews.

Germany allows transgender footballers to choose to play for men's or women's team

Spain’s government approves draft law on transgender rights

Scotland gender recognition reform bill: MPs approve law that makes it easier to change gender

One of the potentially most controversial aspects of the legislation was whether to extend new trans rights provisions to 16 and 17-year-olds, who are considered minors in Finnish law.

"At the last minute this was something that was not in the bill, and this is something which we are disappointed about, but we know there was strong support for more trans reform," Tarjamo explained.

The new Finnish trans rights law has no impact on existing legislation in the Nordic nation which deals with medical confirming treatment for trans people -- something trans rights activists say was widely misunderstood even by the politicians who were voting on the proposals.

"Opponents tried to use this, tried to mix up new laws about legal gender with the concept of gender reassignment treatment," said Kerttu Tarjamo. "But there are medical guidelines that regulate that, not this legislation."

Spain approved legislation allowing gender changes by self-declaration last month, while the British government vetoed a similar bill that lawmakers in Scotland passed in December.

Rate of executions in Saudi Arabia almost doubles under Mohammed bin Salman

Martin Chulov Middle East correspondent
Wed, 1 February 2023

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The rate of executions carried out by Saudi Arabia has almost doubled under the rule of the de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, with the past six years being among the bloodiest in the Kingdom’s modern history, a report has found.

Rates of capital punishment are at historically high levels, despite a push to modernise with widespread reforms and a semblance of individual liberties. Activist groups say the price of change has been high, with a total crackdown on the crown prince’s political opponents and zero tolerance for dissent.

Pledges by Prince Mohammed – who has consolidated extraordinary powers across the Kingdom’s business spheres, industrialists and elite families – to curb executions have not been kept, the new data shows, with each of the six years that he has led the country resulting in more state-sanctioned deaths than any other year in recent history.

Between 2015 and 2022, an average of 129 executions were carried out each year. The figure represents an 82% increase on the period 2010-14. Last year, 147 people were executed – 90 of them for crimes that were considered to be nonviolent.

On 12 March last year, up to 81 men were put to death – an all-time high number of executions, in what activists believe was a pointed message from the Saudi leadership to dissenters, among them tribal groups in the country’s eastern provinces.

The report – prepared by two organisations, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights and Reprieve – says: “Saudi Arabia’s application of the death penalty is riddled with discrimination and injustice and the Saudi regime has been lying to the international community about its use.

“The death penalty is routinely used for non-lethal offences and to silence dissidents and protesters, despite promises by the crown prince that executions would only be used for murder,” it added. “Fair trial violations and torture are endemic in death penalty cases, including torture of child defendants.”

The kingdom is considered one of the leading exponents of capital punishment in the region, with only Iran thought to execute more people a year. In the last six years there have also been slight increases in numbers of executions of children, women and foreign nationals, as well as mass executions and executions for non-lethal offences. A moratorium on capital punishment for drug crimes was recently lifted.

Prince Mohammed has introduced extensive reforms across Saudi workplaces and society, giving women more access to gainful employment and changing social norms that had, for the four decades that followed the Islamic revolution in Iran, kept genders strictly segregated and enforced an ultra hardline interpretation of Islam.

But while there was already little room for dissent under the Kingdom’s absolute monarchy, Prince Mohammed has taken intolerance to new levels, with political and business rivals subject to mass detention and financial shakedowns, and family members of officials that have fled the country being detained for use as leverage to get them back to the kingdom.

The death penalty is seen as one of the new regime’s more visceral tools.

“It’s literally a sword that hangs over all of us, any one who dares to defy him,” said one Saudi royal in exile in Europe. “It’s either that, or being disappeared. Think Gaddafi. Think Saddam. That’s where we are now.”

EDITORIAL
The Guardian view on economics in the media: poorly communicated, poorly understood

Wed, 1 February 2023

Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

The statistical football of this week was lobbed all the way from Washington. From its US headquarters, the International Monetary Fund predicted the UK would be the worst-performing major economy of the year, and the only one to plunge into recession. The news dominated BBC coverage and Westminster debate for the morning, a useful stick both to poke the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and to gauge the bleakness of the outlook.

But why? Why a mere prediction, rather than an actual economic fact? Why the IMF’s forecast, when it is usually wrong and there are already plenty of other projections that are, in fact, even more pessimistic? Most important of all, why fixate on GDP when the statistic bears no direct relation to most people’s daily lives, and a recent study funded by the Office for National Statistics showed that more than half of Britons don’t even know what the term means?

Such questions go right to the heart of our media and politics, so the BBC’s release this week of an independent review into its economics coverage is timely. Written by the economics experts Andrew Dilnot and Michael Blastland, the study is accessibly written and gentle – but it makes damning reading, not only about the BBC but also about the wider media and political culture.

The core problem the authors find is in what they call “politically led news” – statistics and policies that are seen through a Westminster framing. Rather than independent, curious-minded journalism, economics coverage becomes a parroting of politicians’ lines. Take public debt, central to British politics since 2009. In SW1, debt is a problem that must always be stamped out, and it was the description by the former BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg of the national debt as “the credit card … absolutely maxed out” that provoked the protest that prompted this review. Rightly so. As the study says: “States don’t tend to retire or die.” Nor do most households have a printing press in the attic and the IMF just down the road.

Yet that framing of debt has been the norm in politics and media – and disastrous for the country. It gave the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne his alibi for hacking at public services; forced Labour’s Ed Miliband to board the same bandwagon, and encouraged Sky News to run a deficit ticker. Austerity harmed Britons and it warped British politics, feeding the discontent that produced a narrow majority for Brexit.

This is not party-political bias – at least not when the main parties agree on so much. But it is an anti-democratic bias, which shuts people out of discussion about their lives and their society. Economics remains a subject poorly communicated by many journalists, poorly understood by the public and poorly executed by the supposed experts, in large part because they lack democratic challenge.

Politicians and journalists obsess over income tax, when more than a third of Britons don’t pay it. They barely discuss VAT, which everyone pays and which is the dominant tax for those on lower incomes. House prices are a front-page staple, yet the private rental market rarely gets a look-in. On the morning of the IMF forecast, another report showed supermarket food prices rising at an annual rate of 17%. It got a brief mention, yet the news has more to do with the historic wave of strikes sweeping the UK than anything from Washington. Economics affects us all, and all should feel empowered to discuss it. Best of all, it is much more interesting and open-ended than many in power would have us believe.

~~‘Woke’~~ Australian diplomat tells UK to confront its colonial pas

Nick Squires

TELEGRAPH
Wed, 1 February 2023

Penny Wong Australia James Cleverly Britain UK Foreign Secretary diplomacy - Stefan Rousseau/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Australia’s foreign minister has said that Britain must come to terms with its “uncomfortable” colonial past in Asia and the Pacific.

Penny Wong faced criticism in Australia for “rude and self-indulgent” diplomacy after she said that the British must confront past wrongdoing in order to find “more common ground” with the countries they once governed.

Ms Wong, who was born in Malaysia and is of Chinese and British descent, said that colonial powers such as Britain must not remain “sheltered in narrower versions” of their pasts when it came to engaging in the region.

She said: “Such stories can sometimes feel uncomfortable – for those whose stories they are, and for those who hear them. But understanding the past enables us to better share the present and the future.”

Ms Wong, from Australia’s Left-wing Labor government, made the remarks in a speech at King’s College London on her first visit to the UK since becoming foreign minister.

James Cleverly Penny Wong Britain Australia Ukraine soldiers training Russia invasion war

Ben Birchall/Pool via Reuters

Her own family had painful memories of the British colonial past, said the foreign minister, who moved to Australia as a child.

She said that while her great-great-grandparents on her mother’s side were British and settled in south Australia, the other part of her family had had “a very different” experience of the British Empire in North Borneo.

“My father is descended from Hakka and Cantonese Chinese,” Ms Wong recalled. “Many from these clans laboured for the British North Borneo Company in tin mines and plantations for tobacco and timber. Many worked as domestic servants for British colonists, as did my own grandmother.”

Australia had come a long way from its white, British colonial origins, the minister said.

The country is now home to “people of more than 300 ancestries and the oldest continuing culture on earth”, she said, referring to the 60,000-year-old civilisation of Aboriginal people.

Australia now sees itself as “being in the Indo-Pacific, and being of the Indo-Pacific”.

Ms Wong did acknowledge that having Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, as well as ministers of black African and south Asian heritage, meant that Britain had changed since its imperial heyday.

Penny Wong Australia James Cleverly Britain UK Foreign Secretary diplomacy

- Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Pool via Reuters

However, back in Australia, Ms Wong was criticised for embarrassing the country by “lecturing” one of its most important allies with an overly “woke” message.

The speech was “rude and self-indulgent,” said James Macpherson, a Sky News Australia presenter.

“If Penny Wong has issues about her past, she should deal with those privately. But the national stage is not a stage for her to deal with her own personal issues. She is representing the country,” he added.

“It is wrong because regurgitating Britain’s past does nothing to equip us to deal with the present challenge of an aggressive China.”

Richard Marles, Australia’s defence minister who also visited the UK, defended his colleague, saying: “It’s really important for all countries to think about their past in terms of providing a gateway for meaningful engagement in the future.

“We want to see a Great Britain which is engaged in our region and they certainly seek to be that because if Britain engaged in the Indo-Pacific, it will help provide stability in the Indo-Pacific and that’s really important.”

Ms Wong added: “I was making a point about histories and talking about who we are. If we are able to speak about that multi-faceted history, that does give us greater capacity to engage with the countries of our region.”

Neanderthals hunted, butchered massive elephants: study

Lucie Aubourg and Chris Lefkow
Wed, 1 February 2023

Neanderthals may have lived in larger groups than previously believed, hunting massive elephants that were up to three times bigger than those of today, according to a new study.

The researchers reached their conclusions, published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday, based on examinations of the 125,000-year-old skeletal remains of straight-tusked elephants found near Halle in central Germany.

The bones of around 70 elephants from the Pleistocene era were discovered in the 1980s in a huge coal quarry that has since been converted into an artificial lake.

Elephants of the time were much larger than the woolly mammoth and three times the size of the present day Asian elephant, and an adult male could weigh up to 13 metric tons.

"Hunting these giant animals and completely butchering them was part of Neanderthal subsistence activities at this location," Wil Roebroeks, a co-author of the study, told AFP.

"This constitutes the first clear-cut evidence of elephant hunting in human evolution," said Roebroeks, a professor of archeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The study suggests that the Neanderthals who lived in the area for 2,000 to 4,000 years were less mobile and formed social units "substantially larger than commonly envisaged."

"Neanderthals were not simple slaves of nature, original hippies living off the land," Roebroeks said.

"They were actually shaping their environment, by fire... and also by having a big impact on the biggest animals that were around in the world at that time."

- 'Calorie bombs' -

The researchers determined the elephants had been hunted -- and not just scavenged -- because of the age and sex profile of the remains found in the quarry.

Most of them were males and there were few young or old ones.

"It's a typical selection made by hunters who went for the biggest prey," Roebroeks said.

Adult male elephants would have been easier to hunt than females, who tend to move in herds protecting their young.

"Whereas adult males are solitary animals most of the time," Roebroeks said. "So they are easier to immobilize, driving them into mud and pit traps.

"And they are the biggest calorie bombs that are walking around in these landscapes."

The researchers said the Neanderthals were able to preserve the huge quantities of food provided by a single elephant and it would sustain them for months.

"An average male elephant of about 10 tons would have yielded something like, minimally, 2,500 daily portions for an adult Neanderthal," Roebroeks said.

"They could deal with it, either by preserving it for longer time periods -- that is already something that we didn't know -- or simply by the fact that they lived in much, much larger groups than we commonly infer."

- Cut marks -

The researchers said the Neanderthals used flint tools to butcher the animals which left clear traces on the well preserved bones.

"They are classical cut marks that are generated by cutting and scraping off the meat from the bones," Roebroeks said.

Traces of charcoal fires used by the Neanderthals were also found, suggesting they may have dried meat by hanging it on racks and building a fire underneath.

Roebroeks said that while the study provides evidence the Neanderthals lived in large social units it is difficult to estimate exactly how large those groups actually were.

"But if you have a 10-ton elephant and you want to process that animal before it becomes rotten you need something like 20 people to finish it in a week," he said.

la-cl/dw

Labour would protect Scottish shipbuilding jobs – shadow defence minister

Rebecca McCurdy, PA Scotland Political Reporter
Wed, 1 February 2023 a

Shipbuilding jobs in Scotland will be protected under a Labour government, the party’s shadow defence minister has said.

John Healey addressed concerns raised by Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee last week after it emerged the UK Government had issued a £1.6 billion contract to construct three naval support ships to an international consortium.

The decision will see some of the building work take place at the Navantia shipyard in Cadiz, Spain, and MPs on the committee urged the UK Government to provide “greater clarity” on where future contracts for naval vessels will be placed in the future.

The Scottish Affairs Committee has asked Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to explain whether the accepted contract was the cheapest.

It stressed opting for alternative bids from UK firms would have supported “more jobs in the UK and Scotland in particular”.

During a visit to the Erskine Veteran’s Home in Renfrewshire with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mr Healey told the PA news agency: “A Labour UK government would strengthen the support for Scottish yards because we would direct public investment in defence first to British jobs and British companies – and we’d set a higher bar for buying abroad.

“The Scottish [Affairs] Committee is right to ask those questions, especially in light of the fact that the first big test of the Government’s so-called shipbuilding strategy has led the Defence Secretary placing an order for naval support ships, not in UK yards, but giving it to a Spanish firm.”

The Ministry of Defence spent £1.11 billion on shipbuilding in Scotland in 2020-21 – supporting some 7,700 jobs in the industry.

But the committee report said “the Scottish shipbuilding industry should not be given cause to doubt that it will have a consistent order book in the future, so long as it continues to deliver on its commitments to its Government customers”.

A shift in approach from the UK Government means it is “no longer the default position that warships will be designed and built fully in the UK”, the committee said – adding that this is “of concern to some in the Scottish military shipbuilding sector”.

Last year, the Westminster committee also heard concerns that the Scottish shipbuilding industry would suffer if Scotland became independent of the UK.

He said the concerns raised by Professor Keith Hartley, a former UN consultant and senior defence economist, that there was “no future” in Scottish naval shipbuilding with independence, were “spot on”.

He said: “The Scottish Affairs Committee are right to point to the big economic consequences and the big security consequences of any arguments for a separate Scotland in the future.”

Up to 1,200 jobs impacted by British Steel shake-up, says union source

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Wed, 1 February 2023

British Steel plans to axe hundreds of jobs in plans to close its coke ovens in Scunthorpe and will “optimise” several hundred more, a union source has said.

The Chinese-owned manufacturing company was said to be cutting 300 jobs from the coke ovens, with another 600 to 900 being “optimised”. It was unclear what this optimisation would mean.

It comes as ministers are considering a multimillion-pound rescue package for the struggling business.

Earlier on Wednesday, Sky News reported that the business had a plan which could see around 800 workers made redundant.

The redundancies would focus mainly on the plant in Lincolnshire. British Steel employs around 4,000 people across the UK.

The Government is reportedly considering cash injections into both British Steel and Tata Steel UK.

British Steel declined to comment when asked about the potential cuts.

Last month the Financial Times reported that Chancellor Jeremy Hunt was close to signing off on the support package, which could funnel around £300 million to British Steel, with an “equivalent” sum going to Tata.

But it is unclear what the latest threat of redundancies could mean for this negotiation.

Ministers had reportedly demanded that the companies had to protect jobs if they wanted the Government handout.

The funding is reportedly also set to be linked to decarbonisation efforts from the steel giants. It will help replace British Steel’s blast furnaces with electric alternatives, officials hope.

Once a giant of British manufacturing, the business has struggled over the past decade.

China’s Jingye Group became the manufacturer’s third owner in four years when it bought British Steel out of insolvency in 2020. But now Jingye thinks it needs taxpayer funding to keep the doors open.

Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, national officer at the GMB union, said: “This is devastating news for the people of Scunthorpe and all British steel workers across the UK.

“With grim predictability, the Government’s investment is a sticking plaster that does nothing to help the long-term structural issues affecting our steel industry.

“Now, steel workers, their families and communities will once again be asked to pay the price.

“GMB urges British steel and the UK Government to continue talks. Ministers need to decide if they want the UK to have a future in steel or whether they want it to wither and die like so much of our proud manufacturing heritage.”

Alun Davies, national officer at the steelworkers’ union Community, said: “We are extremely concerned about the reports that British Steel is looking to cut hundreds of jobs.

“This move would represent a betrayal of their loyal workforce and their commitments to invest in the business. We believe this would put staff at risk and is completely unworkable.

“British Steel is already putting staff at risk by making them work overtime every single week. Cutting hundreds of jobs in this situation will endanger workers by pushing them to work even longer hours in extreme temperatures.

“Steelworkers played their part to protect our steel industry and are being failed by both the Government and British Steel who are abdicating their responsibilities to the workforce and our country.

“British Steel should urgently clarify its position and know that we will use any means at our disposal to fight this dangerous plan.”

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Any reports of prospective job losses would be of concern. I can’t necessarily comment on speculation but the Government always stands ready to provide or signpost assistance for anyone who needs it.

“In terms of long-term support for UK steel, this is a Government that has taken a number of steps in this space.”

Simpsons strike episode on day of industrial action a coincidence says Channel 4

Max McLean, PA
Wed, 1 February 2023 at 1:29 pm GMT-7·2-min read

Channel 4 was congratulated by viewers for showing a Simpsons episode centred around workers’ rights on a day of widespread industrial action in the UK, but the broadcaster said it was a coincidence.

The channel’s 6pm showing of the US cartoon on Wednesday was Last Exit to Springfield, a season four episode widely regarded as one of the show’s best.

The story sees Homer Simpson go up against Mr Burns to fight for the employees’ dental plan, culminating in a strike at the power plant.

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening (left) and voice of Homer Dan Castellaneta (Ian West/PA)

Mr Burns turns off the power to the city in retaliation but the solidarity of the workers eventually forces his hand, and Homer wins back the dental plan.

Meanwhile, Wednesday was described as the country’s biggest day of strike action in a decade, with workers walking out in increasingly bitter disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

“Walkout Wednesday” saw thousands of schools closed for the day because of action by the National Education Union (NEU) and picket lines were mounted outside railway stations, schools, government departments and universities across the country.

Striking members and supporters of the National Education Union (NEU) in Trafalgar Square, London (James Manning/PA)

It did not take long for Channel 4 viewers to spot a link between the day’s industrial action and the themes present in Wednesday’s Simpsons showing.

“The Simpsons. Channel 4. Very apt episode considering the amount of strikes taking place,” tweeted Alex Ramsden.

“Channel 4 playing the strike ep of the Simpsons. Solidarity,” wrote Twitter user Hannah Fretwell.

“Well done Channel 4 for putting on The Simpsons episode where all the power plant workers go on strike!” tweeted a Twitter user simply known as Jim.

However, the broadcaster confirmed to the PA news agency the timing was simply a coincidence.

"Last Exit to Springfield" is the seventeenth episode of the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 11, 1993.^[1] The plot revolves around Homer Simpson becoming president of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's trade union and leading the workers of the plant in a strike in order to restore their dental plan so that he does not have to buy braces for Lisa.