THE Sun will be 2p more expensive than the Times from Monday because of the latest shift in prices from News International, writes Steve Boggan.

It appeared last night that the newspaper price war was cracking when the company announced an increase in the price of the Sun from 20p to 22p from Monday because of higher printing costs, but the Times will stay at 20p. Today, News International's mid-market tabloid, will also increase its price in Merseyside and Scotland - where short term reductions were in force - from 20p to 25p.

Jane Reed, director of corporate affairs at News International, said the increases were caused by rises in print and paper costs and were not timed to coincide with the company's end of year results which will be published next Thursday. She confirmed that the price of the Times, lowered to 20p in response to the Daily Telegraph's cut to 30p, will not change.

Stuart Higgins, editor of the Sun, said: 'Over half a million more people bought the paper every day. The fact is that if paper and print prices hadn't gone up we would have kept the price at 20p even longer.'

The Sun's price was cut from 25p to 20p on 12 July. Audited Bureau of Circulation figures show that the paper increased sales year on year by 16 per cent to 4,173,699.

The price war begun by News International resulted in an increase in the market for popular newspapers of 3.21 per cent.