After failing to convince councils to obey a code that was supposed to prevent them publishing newspapers in competition with the commercial press, the government is going to enforce obedience.
The local audit and accountability bill - as announced in the Queen's speech - is aimed at killing off the "town hall Pravdas", the phrase beloved by the bumbling communities minister Eric Pickles.
Councils may well see this as something of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but the disobedient nuts - such as the London borough of Tower Hamlets paper, East End Life - made it inevitable.
They simply ignored the code and went on producing a free weekly paper that, over the years, has had a hugely negative impact on the paid-for title, the East London Advertiser (published by Archant).
Evidently, the bill will "strengthen the legal status" of code of practice on local authority publicity that was introduced in March 2011.
Soon afterwards, several councils stopped publishing papers that were regarded by commercial publishers as unfair competition and by editors as little more than propaganda sheets.
Some simply ignored the code. For example, another London borough, Greenwich, went on publishing its free weekly, Greenwich Time. Like other such papers, its editorial content was blatantly unfair by excluding all opposition voices.
Greenwich's case, however, reveals the complexity of the problem. Its area is very poorly served by the commercial press. Both the News Shopper (published by Newsquest) and the Mercury (published by the Tindle group and formerly known as the Greenwich Mercury) are do not cover Greenwich in depth (see here).
Perhaps the closure of Time will make a difference, but I wouldn't count on it. The retreat of local weeklies, accompanied by editorial staff cuts, is part of this unfortunate story.
