Your Telegraph & Argus will be published as normal throughout the Easter period despite a strike by some members of the National Union of Journalists.

The majority of T&A journalists are working normally and production of the newspaper will not be affected in any way.

Editor Perry Austin-Clarke said: "All of our most senior and highly-skilled journalists are working normally and are determined and committed to making sure that the quality of the T&A does not suffer in any way.

"Anyone who is in any doubt about that only needs to look at the newspapers we produced at the start of the Iraq war - when this same minority was on strike - which recorded some of the best sales of the year so far and brought widespread praise from readers for our coverage."

David Coates, managing dir-ector of Newsquest (Bradford) Ltd - which also publishes the Keighley News, the Craven Herald, the Ilkley Gazette, the Wharfedale & Airedale Obser-ver and a host of other titles - said: "They have taken 17 days of action so far without disrupting or affecting any of our titles or editions and all they are managing to do is further alienate the majority of their colleagues who are working normally.

"They are clearly setting out to cause the maximum disruption with the least possible inconvenience to themselves: their latest '12-day' strike has been timed to fall across two weekends and two bank holidays while most of those taking action will lose only six days' pay.

"It's a great shame that a minority of militant staff are able to disrupt the lives of the majority of their colleagues who have made it clear they do not agree with their actions."

The strikers, whose average salary is more than £21,000 per annum, are demanding an increase of £1,500 across the board.

Terry Rooney, Labour MP for Bradford North, has put forward an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons calling for the company to "negotiate properly" with the union.

Mr Austin-Clarke said: "Terry doesn't know what he's talking about. He hasn't bothered to contact anyone at the company to find out the facts and he presumably isn't aware that we have been negotiating directly with the union's national general secretary.

"He seems to have swallowed their propaganda whole and he may want to ask the local leadership why they have refused to suspend their action while those talks are continuing with the general secretary."