‘We feel dispirited’: striking junior doctors worn down but determined to fight on

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.