Independent Spared Editorial Cuts

At the board meeting of Newspaper Publishing, owner of the Independent papers held yesterday, staff were told that there would not be any cuts in the editorial budget. Patrick Morrison, chief executive, had argued for cuts of £8 million.

This means that the papers will have to look to an outside group for survival The most likely contenders seem to be United Newspapers, where the Express group would take 25% in return for a cash injection of around £10m, as well as sharing printing and administration to save costs. A deal with the Telegraph group could be problematic due to the competition authorities.