This is The Guardian.

This is not an ordinary industrial dispute.

Resolent doctors are absolutely determined to get full pay restoration.

Pay is important. We must value our doctors in this country.

The trouble for West Streeting is that he's won the battle for the hearts and minds of the public,

but not the hearts and minds of the resident doctors.

Mr Speaker, let me be clear about the strikes. They're dangerous and utterly irresponsible.

Why resident doctors are striking just before Christmas

and what it means for the NHS dealing with a flu crisis.

From The Guardians today in focus,

this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

I'm joined by Dennis Campbell, who is Health Policy Editor at The Guardian.

So resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, are walking out today for the first day and a five-day strike just before Christmas.

Talk to me about the scale of the walkouts and the likely impact that they're going to have today and in the days coming.

So across England today, many, many thousands of resident doctors are on strike. There are

about 70,000 resident doctors in England. That's about half of the NHS's entire medical

workforce. So they're really important people to the smooth running of the NHS. Many people

refer to them as the workhorse of the NHS. Many people refer to them as the

workhorse of the NHS. These are the doctors up to just up to just below the level of

consultant. They do a lot of very, very important work in clinics, in operations, in any departments

across the board and across the whole terrain of NHS care. Many, many, many thousands of them are on

strike. We won't get the numbers until a few

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