Francis Wheen seems to be attached to the proposed high-brow tabloid that is in the early stages of being launched. He’s certainly a credible addition to the venture, but you do have to ask the question – is there room for a new paper?
I can quite easily buy the argument that some of our broadsheets are going downmarket – The Times and Daily Telegraph could be said to have fallen into this category. But it’s quite possible that the new Telegraph owners could drag it back upmarket, and I’d certainly argue that The Independent and The Guardian remain upmarket titles. The Independent will be fully tabloid in a matter of months, so that issue is out the window, and I don’t really see the reason for dropping photos to a large extent.
It all seems a bit like the Sunday Correspondent which had a short run back in the late 80s but only lasted a short while. The only real difference would be not taking a left-leaning political stance as a title. But the Indy and Guardian aren’t exactly daily editions of the Socialist Worker.
Maybe a new weekly magazine would have a better chance. Something not as overtly political as the New Statesman or The Spectator. A weekly version of Prospect perhaps?