Media: A moment with Marquis.(Associated Newspapers Holdings PLC)

Always get your retaliation in first, they say. Associated Newspapers certainly thinks so, because isn't this how the Standard Lite launch is panning out?

Anyone considering elbowing their way on to the London newspaper scene is going to have to think very hard indeed to build a successful business in a market already bulging at the seams with a flourishing Metro and a cleverly put-together Standard Lite as well as the 'full fat' Evening Standard.

Associated isn't daft, and has come to realise that Richard Desmond is not the bumbling joke it had hoped when he first got into newspapers. Desmond has breathed life into the Express and the Star after years of decline, and has the balls and the cunning to have a real crack at the London market.

But Standard Lite is a good product and a canny pre-emptive move. Everyone at the Standard is saying that Lite is the snack that will whet the reader's appetite for the paid-for feast later in the day. Maybe.

If it works out that way, Associated won't believe its luck. A much more likely scenario is that Lite will gradually supplant the paid-for version, hastening its sales decline but shoring up Associated's dominant share of the London market.

At first sight, introducing a product that makes ...