The Independent effectively having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside. "The Independent" attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his company's new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan "It is. Are you?", and challenging both "The Guardian" for centre-left readers and "The Times" as the newspaper of record, "The Independent" reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989. Competing in a moribund market, "The Independent" sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years, a price war in the market sector. When "The
Metro (British newspaper) a sister paper to the conservative "Mail", the newspaper has never endorsed any political party or candidate, and claims to take a neutral political stance in its reporting. The "Metro" free newspaper concept originated in Sweden, where a publication of the same name was launched in 1995 by Metro International. British newspaper executives Jonathan Harmsworth and Murdoch MacLennan, from DMGT, were reportedly inspired by the idea and flew to Stockholm on a 'fact-finding mission' with a view to developing their own version. There were also reports in the late 1990s that both Metro International and Rupert Murdoch's News International were