Press: Showdown on Fleet Street

London's Times and Sunday Times challenge the unions

Sir: To whom would we write letters if there were no Times? Yours faithfully, Mary Large, Grange Farm, North Hykeham.

—Letter to the Times

Quaint as that query may sound to an American, the impending shutdown of the venerable Times and Sunday Times of London is no footling affair to an Englishman. The gloom among Britain's Establishment could be as thick as suet pudding if the Times (circ. 293,000)—the nation's newspaper of record and the favorite forum of impassioned letter writers —suspends publication this week, as now seems likely. Equally wretched will be the 1.4 million...

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