In the last year or so plenty of publications have been cut and staff numbers reduced. One of the papers that didn’t make it through was evening free sheet The London Paper. With this in mind there were plenty of raised eyebrows last year when a new London free paper was announced.

The London Weekly, which published its first issue today, has been a bit of a mystery for the last few months with nobody sure who was writing for it. It didn’t seem to have a clear idea of what it was doing either.

It’s a tough time to launch any new title, let alone one that is going into an already highly competitive market. It therefore seems odd to launch a paper that leaves people with little (if any) idea of what its supposed to be.

The first edition hit the streets this morning and to say it looks poorly put together is a slight understatement, I can only assume it was put together by someone’s child on work experience.

See here for some more photos but it really doesn’t look good, to say it looks like a small local paper would be doing a massive disservice to local papers. And spelling someone’s name wrong on the front page isn’t a great start either.

Another edition is due out next week and it will be interesting to see if there is any improvement. Many people have already questioned if the paper is actually a joke, but if not, and the next edition (if it makes it that far) doesn’t show any improvement, then I really can’t see such a poor paper lasting long in what is such an incredibly competitive market.