BT is planning for a walkout by more than half of its staff, with the results of a strike ballot of members of the Communication Workers' Union expected early this afternoon.

Union insiders said they were quietly confident of a yes vote. If the more than 50,000 CWU members within BT do vote for industrial action, officials must give BT seven days' notice, meaning workers could strike from 12 July.

European leaders slicing away at national budgets are keen to persuade voters that healthcare is sacrosanct, but they will struggle to escape the truth that cutting spending elsewhere also eventually costs lives.

If a government's first priority is to protect the lives of its people, then ringfencing health spending while cutting other budgets and trying to drive down the cost of medicines -- policies being pursued in Europe -- seem sensible options.

Cuts to the public sector are bound to trigger strikes, the nation's biggest civil service union said Monday, warning the government against taking harsh spending reductions to tackle a record budget deficit.

The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is planning spending cuts of around 25 percent across government departments to cut a deficit running close to 11 percent of national output.

Unemployment among recent graduates has risen significantly, with men worse affected than women, a think tank says.

The Higher Education Policy Institute said unemployment among graduates aged under 24 rose by 25% from 11.1% in December 2008 to 14% in December 2009.

Building society Nationwide says it is likely to end its sponsorship of the England football team.

Nationwide had tabled a £20m offer to extend the partnership for another four years, but this had been turned down by the FA.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has so far cost BP a total of $3.12bn (£2bn), the company has said.

The total includes the cost of containing the spill and cleaning up the oil, and the cost of drilling relief wells.