Local Lib Dems have been blamed for the decision by Guardian Media Group to cut back the Reading Evening Post to just two editions per week.

A company statement said: "After the Lib Dems slashed Reading Borough Council's publicity budget for the next year, we had serious doubts on how the paper was going to be able to fill its copy with a drastic reduction on fatuous quotes from lead councillors to print. It makes the whole operation untenable."

A source close to the paper told us: "We'll have our revenge on the Lib Dems. If they thought being relegated to having a 'Second Person' piece on the council tax budget was bad, wait until we start putting all their press releases in 24Seven. No-one reads that!"