Owner of plants in south Wales says it could cease operations at blast furnaces in response to strike action

Labour politicians have been urged to step in to help avert a “costly mistake” by Tata Steel, which has told staff it could close operations at its steel plant in Port Talbot just days after the general election.

The Indian owner of the vast south Wales steelworks said on Thursday that it intended to cease operations at two blast furnaces on the site by 7 July – three days after the general election – in response to strike action announced by Unite members from 8 July. The company had planned to shut one furnace by the end of June and a second by September.

Unite says upcoming walkout at the plant, which was set to close in September, is ‘for the future of the steel industry’

Tata Steel has told workers it could to cease operations at its steel plant in Port Talbot months earlier than planned because of a strike.

The company had been planning to shut down one of the blast furnaces by the end of June and the second one by September. But workers at the south Wales site have been told that Tata plans to cease operations at both furnaces no later than 7 July because of the strike by members of Unite, which starts the following day.

Five-day strike by junior doctors is the 11th action in their long-running pay dispute

“I’m itching to get back to work, to get back to the grindstone,” says Matthew Alexander, a junior radiology doctor. “Nobody wants to be here, nobody wants to be on strike.” Alexander, 30, is one of about 50 junior doctors on a Thursday morning picket line at the Friarage hospital in Northallerton, a bustling market town in Rishi Sunak’s sprawling North Yorkshire constituency.

It’s a sunny day; there’s cheerful, enthusiastic chanting and lots of support from drivers who honk their horns, but it is abundantly clear that only Betty, a laid-back 11-year-old jackapoo, is anywhere approaching happy to be here.

About 25,000 BMA members begin five-day action at 7am that some union leaders say will achieve little

Junior doctors in England will strike today for the 11th time over pay, amid concern in their union that a stoppage so close to the general election is an “own goal”.

Senior figures in the British Medical Association (BMA) believe the strike is pointless and “naive” and risks irritating Labour, which looks likely to be in power by next Friday and asked the union to call it off.