By Martin Thomas
The left-wing monthly Red Pepper, and weekly Tribune, have joined forces to promote a "charter for the minority press".
What stung them to action was a decision by W H Smith, who control most of the wholesale trade in periodicals in Britain, to cut back still further on the number of magazines it will take. Royal Mail has also announced that from September 2004 it will scrap its Newspaper Registration Service, under which registered newspapers can go by first-class post for a second-class stamp.