In a move widely held to presage a full blooded merger of their editorial teams, around ten staff have been made redundant as a result of the online move, with each being asked to reapply for new posts as part of a combined ‘digital development and strategy’ unit. Both titles are set upon a path of increasing cooperation within certain boundaries, owing to undertakings made by Rupert Murdoch at the time of his acquisition of the papers to preserve their distinctive identities.