Cooke has been a vociferous critic of the First Division clubs’ attempts to block promotion and relegation for this season, ostensibly in the interests of stability.
Political correctness is not a necessity these days, so Cooke can sound off to his heart’s content. “That used to be the main grandstand three years ago,” he says. Go past the kitchens and take the lift to the third floor, turn left again and walk along the corridor to the end. Geoff Cooke, the sage of English rugby, can be found in a pristine office at the top of the new south stand of Worcester Rugby Centre from where he has an uninterrupted view of a fertile swathe of rugby’s future.

He points to a structure which resembles the local bus stop. Go past the kitchens and take the lift to the third floor, turn left again and walk along the corridor to the end.

Geoff Cooke, the sage of English rugby, can be found in a pristine office at the top of the new south stand of Worcester Rugby Centre from where he has an uninterrupted view of a fertile swathe of rugby’s future. Mannix struck a drop goal straight and true to give Gloucester a little breathing space and in injury time with a running battle proceeding in the middle of the field Byron Hayward pounced on Mannix’s kick-ahead to score the try which sealed a marvellously entertaining match.
Bristol: M Back; S Marsden, J Mayer, P Whittaker (J Ogilvie-Bull, 40), L Best; H Honiball, A Pichot; P Johnstone, B Williams, D Crompton (P Lemoine, 73), O Booyse, S Morgan, C Evans, D Ryan (capt), A Vander (C Short, 73).
Gloucester: B Hayward; C Catling, T Fanolua (J Ewens, 78), C Yates, T Beim; S Mannix, E Moncrieff; S Simon (T Woodman, 68), C Fortey, A Deacon (P Vickery, 40), R Fidler (M Cornwell, 74), I Jones, S Ojomoh, E Pearce, K Jones (capt).
Referee: S Lander (Cheshire).. Ryan made the first breach with a try from a scrummage and a couple of minutes later Mayer barged over. Then with 12 minutes left and the excitement mounting Back atoned for his earlier sins with Gloucester’s third try to close the gap to five points.
But Gloucester regrouped and drove forward once more with controlled ferocity. They tore into the Glouc-ester defence with a recklessness and enthusiasm which had been notably absent during the first 40 minutes. Mannix, with his third conversion, followed by his third penalty, gave Gloucester a comfortable and apparently unassailable lead of 24 points.
Bristol, though, were unrecognisable with the wind behind them. Another line-out cleanly won, a drive by Serge Simon who is fast becoming a cult hero with the Gloucester following, before Yates fed Tom Beim who had come off his wing.

When your partner already has made par and you are putting for birdie that’s going to help.”
Azinger, winless on the PGA Tour since returning from a bout with cancer in 1995, is hoping to help his confidence with a victory. The final round will feature a modified alternate-shot format.
Scott Gump and Maria Hojorth were second after a 65. Se Ri Pak and Paul Azinger combined for a 9-under 62 to take a four-stroke lead after the third round of the JCPenney Classic in Palm Harbour, Florida.

“He made birdie, or I make par,” Pak said on Saturday. “It was perfect.”
Azinger had an eagle and seven birdies in the best-ball round on the Westin Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course, powering the team to a 22-under 191 total. He was a little sparkplug for us.”
Scores after the first round of the $860,000 Father-Son Challenge on the par-72, 7,214-yard (6,565-meter) Twin Eagles Golf and Country Club course (format was a scramble):
Steve and Hale Irwin 59 Gary and Jack Nicaklaus 60 Robert and Raymond Floyd 60 Wesley and Jerry Pate 62 David and Tom Kite 62 Kevin and Craig Stadler 62 Ron and Dave Stockton 62 John and Al Geiberger 63 Rick and Lee Trevino 63 Myatt and Hubert Green 63 David and Bob Charles 64 Andrew and David Graham 65 Josh and Larry Nelson 65 Kyle and Charlie Coody 67 Bobby and Billy Casper 67 Eric and Tom Weiskopf 69.

Defending champions Bob and David Charles opened with a 64.
David Kite provided the highlight for his team, holing out for an eagle from 137 yards on No. Gary Nicklaus, who qualified for his PGA Tour card last month, is replacing Jack II, who is recovering from a broken heel.
Tom Kite and 15-year-old son David were in a four-way tie for fourth at 10-under with Jerry and Wesly Pate, Craig and Kevin Stadler, and Dave and Ron Stockton. Hale and Steve Irwin combined for a 13-under 59 on to take a one-stroke lead over Jack and Gary Nicklaus and Raymond and Robert Floyd after the first round of the Father-Son Challenge in Naples, Florida.

“We had a very good day,” Hale Irwin said. “We didn’t play as well as we’d like, but we teamed very well. When I would miss a shot, Steve was there to pick me up and vice versa.
“The key really was Steve’s putting. There’s no doubt that his putting kept us going.”
Jack Nicklaus and son Jack II co-designed the TwinEagles’ Talon Course.

This was certainly one of those.

Southampton had dealt their confidence another blow by losing 4-0 to Aston Villa in the Worthington Cup. That followed a defeat at Leeds which ended with the manager David Jones making an enraged verbal attack on the referee – usually the first sign of deferring responsibility. He knew Southampton had not played all that badly in either match but were in danger of entertaining defeatist thoughts – not surprisingly after winning only one of their previous nine League matches, a record that cannot be blamed on referees.
Coventry’s unbeaten run of seven games had gone the week before and they were still hampered by away form, which was something they needed to correct quickly if those somewhat over-the-rainbow thoughts of a place in Europe were to turn to reality. Coventry’s long wait for their first away win of the season and Southampton’s stumbling form continued at the Dell yesterday, but there are days when goalless draws and unfulfilled ambitions seem less important than value for money This was certainly one of those. Coventry’s long wait for their first away win of the season and Southampton’s stumbling form continued at the Dell yesterday, but there are days when goalless draws and unfulfilled ambitions seem less important than value for money. There were 25 arrests before and during the match and fighting continued after the match when supporters clashed with police in south-east London.
Meanwhile, Bristol Rovers’ Jason Roberts scored twice, his first goals in nine games, as they won 3-0 at Brentford.
Form was turned on its head in the Nationwide Conference where the top side, Nuneaton, trailed 3-0 at home to the bottom club, Forest Green, goals coming from the former England winger Tony Daley and a pair by Dennis Bailey, who as a Queen’s Park Ranger scored a hat-trick at Old Trafford Nuneaton recovered but still lost 3-2 and dropped to third..

After the break Dave Challinor made it 2-0, Eidur Gudjohnsen pulled one back and then Rovers’ Gareth Roberts was sent off after a second booking, Tranmere’s sixth dismissal of the season. Bob Taylor made it 2-2 as the pendulum swung in the home side’s favour, but Scott Taylor confirmed Rovers’ fighting form with the winning goal 11 minutes from time.
And Blackburn’s traditional improvement under the stewardship of the caretaker manager Tony Parkes continued with a point from their 0-0 draw at Port Vale.
In the Second Division, the expected trouble between supporters of Millwall and Cardiff City at the New Den duly materialised after Neil Harris had scored twice to make it nine goals in seven games The 2-0 win lifted the Lions to sixth. Or maybe the Crewe manager was lulling them into a false sense of security before his side beat them 2-0. The Londoners’ promotion challenge had faltered in recent weeks – beaten by Manchester City and Blackburn, letting slip a two-goal lead over Port Vale, all at home – but after falling behind to a Steve Chettle shot following a Barnsley corner, Charlton had the better of the exchanges and deserved the equaliser courtesy of Keith Jones’ half-volley.
Tranmere and Bolton both reached the last eight of the Worthington Cup in midweek and when they met at the Reebok Stadium, Rovers’ Andy Parkinson latched on to Alan Morgan’s 18th-minute pass and drove it in to emphasise Rovers’ first-half domination. When the centre-back Steve Macauley joined the attack 22 minutes later he was on the spot to volley in Shaun Smith’s free-kick.
At the top of the division, Charlton (third) and Barnsley (fourth) drew 1-1 at Oakwell. After 12 minutes Paul Tait, late of Northwich Victoria, picked up the ball on the edge of Palace’s penalty area beat two defenders and lobbed Fraser Digby. Four minutes later Michael Carrick equalised, a glancing header from Bobby Howe’s cross.

Many of the beds are already covered with a thick layer of mulch, part horse manure and part spent mushroom compost. Her plants are arranged in group , and there are plenty of trees.”A lot of my tips are based on my experience here,” she says. “I’ve tried to boil down the mass of information you gather over the years into something fairly accessible. I hope people can begin at Chapter One and end up being competent and confident gardeners. But although it’s practical, I hope that it’s inspirational, too. And it’s concise; bulky books like the Royal Horticultural Society’s encyclopedias can be daunting.”Not that this is pocket-sized: it has 286 quarto pages with charming instructional diagrams by Ian Sideway and informative pictures. One of these shows the clothes carousel, with the all important low-down on where to place it:”Out of sight of your windows, the garden sitting area and, if you are a good neighbour, next door’s as well.

Combine the useful with the beautiful by underplanting a carousel with aromatic herbs which release their scent when trodden on.”A delightful inspiration, which I suspect will never find its way into the RHS Encyclopaedia.! Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall’s `Gardening Made Easy’ is published on Thursday by Weidenfeld and Nicolson at £19.99.. 1 Choose plants to suit your soil and climate; eg, don’t make polythene-lined pockets in chalk gardens so you can grow azaleas. The specific conditions in your garden are what give it its unique character – otherwise all gardens would look the same

2 Be aware how big your plants are going to grow. I go around my garden the whole time digging up huge shrubs that I’ve planted too close together. Give them space – you can always fill in the gaps while you’re waiting for them to grow.
3 However small your garden, plant a tree Of all my plants, the trees give me most pleasure. For a small garden, choose a tree that won’t grow very high and, to stop it taking over, plant it in a large pot or tub.4 Make beds and borders as wide as you can. It’s impossible to get pleasing groupings of different heights and textures if you have a bed that’s only a foot wide.5 Plant in groups – shrubs in groups of three and herbaceous plants in sevens and nines Odd numbers work best.

I have lost all my life savings.”The story is the same all over Chobham, although no one is keen to talk about it. Millions of pounds of savings have been wiped out; and, on the whole, they are savings that people could ill-afford to lose. Stewart Monk, who runs the local gift shop, says that the widow of a local Lloyd’s Name came into his shop before Christmas and told him that she was going to have to sell the house. “She was left to pick up the pieces when her husband died last summer,” he says “She didn’t seem bitter about it at all, just resigned I felt incredibly sorry for her. She has not done anything wrong, and her husband was trying to do the best he could. I think when things go wrong to this extent the Government should step in and rescue them. I don’t know how many of these people understood what they were getting into, but I don’t think there’s any difference between them and the Maxwell pensioners.”The Maxwell pensioners might disagree, and with good reason.

Yet it would be wrong to yield to the temptation to dismiss Chobham’s Names as the greedy super-rich, undeserving of sympathy It is a prosperous village, but in a modest way. There are more obviously wealthy towns in the area – Windlesham, Wentworth and Virginia Water in Surrey, and Sunningdale and Ascot across the border in Berkshire – but these seem to have escaped relatively unscathed by Lloyd’s. That seems to be part of the nature of the phenomenon: few of the victims were ever spectacularly rich; most of the money that has been lost is middle-class money.The villagers of Chobham, for example, tend to be accountants, architects and solicitors rather than the more ostentatiously rich sheikhs and City men in neighbouring towns. If you walk or drive around the village, or go to Holy Communion, or sit around in the pub, the people you meet are ordinary, middle-class people, with ordinary Home Counties aspirations. Overheard talk in the 300-year-old Sun Inn is more likely to be about families and football than about spirals, Piper Alpha and Hurricane Hugo. Villagers support their church, and their local branch of the NSPCC.

He didn’t, he said, want certain people to know that he was a Lloyd’s Name. Along with some of the other Lloyd’s Names, who declined to see me for legal reasons, he is desperately trying to reduce his losses. Negotiations were delicate, he said, but if they came off, it would be a significant settlement – suggesting perhaps that other Names might benefit from his trailblazing efforts But he could not pretend to feel for them. “The other Lloyd’s members are like lemmings, always looking to see what others are going to do.” As for the market itself, he added, warming to his theme: “All Lloyd’s Names are crap as far as Lloyd’s is concerned. We’re all going down the funnel at the same time.”He had calmed down by the time he ushered me out with a “Bless you lad, good-bye.” But he would still like his door-knob back.MULTIPLY such scenes 24,000 times, and you begin to get a picture of what the Lloyd’s disaster has done to Britain. Over the last three years for which claims have been made (1989, 1990 and 1991), Lloyd’s Names have built up a liability estimated at around £8bn. Roughly 4,000 of them were “working” Names, insurance professionals who decided to back their judgement with money of their own The remaining 20,000 losers were outsiders.

A few of these were famous – Sir Freddie Laker, former tennis player Buster Mottram, Tory MP Paul Marland – and some of the “non-working” investors could certainly afford to lose the odd million. But most of those who have lost do not seem to have seen becoming a Name as being a particularly large or reckless gamble. They might just as well have been putting their money in bonds or unit trusts. Many were only putting their relatively modest wealth with Lloyd’s because of an effective recruitment drive in the Eighties which saw 22,000 new Names between 1982 and 1990 (and the minimum wealth requirement for Names reduced from assets of £250,000 to assets of £37,500).How it all went wrong is still a matter of controversy – and litigation – but the bare bones are relatively clear. A succession of unexpected “super-claims” – Piper Alpha, Hurricane Hugo, Exxon Valdez, asbestosis – found a number of key underwriting syndicates disastrously exposed.

In most cases, it was the non-working Names who bore the brunt. Big or small, well-known or unknown, they all became victims of a market that in some cases appears to have been hijacked by a small number of occasionally negligent and often not very bright individuals whose interests were divorced from those of the Names they represented.To the outsider, it is all relatively clear, but to the Names themselves it has been bewildering, and in Chobham, at least, no one seems to have a clear idea of how they should now react.Francis Higgins, a retired finance director, is keeping faith with Lloyd’s and remaining a Name, despite having lost £50,000 every year since he joined in 1988. So is one of his neighbours, a retired solicitor, who vividly recalled for me the sinking feeling he experienced in 1990 when, looking out of a bedroom window in his Georgian house and counting the trees in the garden, he began to calculate his losses for the first time. But most of the other Chobham Names have now left Lloyd’s, wary of agents handing them a glass of sherry at the back of an AGM and talking about more prosperous times. Michael Brooke, an entrepreneur specialising in computers who holds annual bridge parties in aid of the NSPCC, left in 1989 after 17 years. He would have left earlier if his syndicate managers hadn’t tried to talk him out of it, making him miss the deadline, and trapping him for the first of the bad years.

None the less, with claimed losses of only £25,000, Mr Brooke is the least affected non-working Name in Chobham. (There is one Chobhamite who was a working Name, but he pulled out in 1988 and thus avoided all the losses. Needless to say, his good fortune does not seem to have endeared him to Chobham’s other Names.)Elsewhere in the village, there is a sense of helpless despair. There have not been any suicides as yet, although Michael Brooke blames Lloyd’s for the early death of a friend outside the village. However, such future tragedies cannot be discounted for as long as so many villagers continue to dread the arrival of the postman bearing the next white Lloyd’s envelope.Some think the only escape is to spend any money they have left as quickly as possible, so that there is nothing more for Lloyd’s to take.

Jean Muir was a tough and resilient Scot; the bravery that represents epitomises the courage of a woman who was never anything other than definite.Jean Elizabeth Muir, dressmaker: born London 17 July 1928; Designer-Director and Co-Owner, Jean Muir Ltd 1967-95; RDI 1972; FRSA 1973; CBE 1984; married 1955 Harry Leuckert; died London 28 May 1995.. She showed little interest in pattern or decoration, nor was she a great colourist. When I once asked Beatrix Miller, the former editor of Vogue, where Jean should be placed in the pantheon of couturiers, it was as the English Vionnet.Not even her closest friends knew that she had cancer. Here she indulged to the full her selective eye for modern British craft pieces along with sculptures by Elisabeth Frink and paintings by Bridget Riley, both of whom wore her clothes superbly well.Indeed, that touches her achievement, a look for the professional woman of the kind who was rising to the top from the mid-1960s onwards Her vision depended on drape, cut and craftsmanship. She treasured her privacy, denying the camera’s intrusive eye into her Northumbrian home, where if the arrival of meals could be erratic abundance and hilarity never was.

Her pronouncements were magisterial; her enthusiasm was boundless. Like Elizabeth Arden, Jean was always “Miss” Muir, but to those privileged to know her as a friend she was a carefree loving person, blessed by a perfect marriage to Harry Leuckert. She was a vociferous reader, an avid theatre-goer and gallery visitor She adored jazz as much as she did champagne. Once I told her that only she could turn up for the Queen’s Birthday Party at the British Embassy in Paris looking like a Neapolitan widow. The quality of design and practicality of the cups and saucers in the new restaurant were just as important to her as the latest high-art acquisition. As Master of the Faculty of the Royal Designers for Industry she used all the strings which that office brought her to lobby for raising the level of training in design and craftsmanship upon which Britain’s industrial prosperity would depend.At any event she was an unmistakable figure, her own clothes suiting her supremely.

Terrier-like, she would nibble and nag at everything and everybody in support of the causes he championed.As a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum she would turn up at six in the morning to find out just how the floors were or were not cleaned. She was fervently patriotic, dedicated to furthering the cause of British design, furious at Government, the art colleges, the fashion industry or anything or anybody who was seen to be responsible for any form of lapse or slip downwards in standards. She seemed to spring from nowhere, a pert, small, schoolgirlish figure with immaculate straight hair framing a face which was never devoid of expression. When her passions rose high her features could assume a striking resemblance to Munch’s The Scream. And her passions were strong, for quality, finish, training, discipline, cleanliness, order, all ingredients she expressed in her own art, that of clothes, but ones that she regarded as fundamental to any professional career.For her the role of creative designer and efficient businesswoman ran in tandem.

Mr Asper, following weeks of silence, is Messianic on the subject of television generally and UK TV’s strengths specifically. It also thinks it can get more results.The next few weeks will determine whether that is really the case – or whether Sir Leon would be better employed finding a stick of his own.. The Covent Garden offices of UKTV, the leading bidder for the Channel 5 licence, look like a high-class squat. There are computers on desks, boxes of press releases cluttering the hall but no decoration, no character There is, indeed, a pervading sense of impermanence. Hardly suprising perhaps, as the man driving UKTV, David Asper, lives in Winnipeg, Canada, commuting back and forth to London.
Moreoever, most of the partners of UKTV are based outside the country, brought together simply by the attractive prospect of running a national television channel.But perish the thought that their bid is anything but serious. The Europeans use what they call the trade adjustment mechanism as a framework for talks, and have established a “regulatory dialogue”, which is Europe’s way of influencing Japan’s own internal decisions.By maintaining its strategy of seeking concessions through negotiation – while the US bangs on the door with the big stick – the EU clearly believes it can maintain closer ties with the Japanese bureaucracy. But when Mr Chirac met Mr Kono, he emphasised that this should not be the cause of any confrontation.

Rather, the EU will continue with its own track of persuasion.In an unusual briefing last year, John Richardson, the official in the European Commission in charge of US-Japan trade ties, said the US used “megaphone” diplomacy, which risked provoking “rejectionism” on a much wider front. The EU’s deficit with Japan was ecu24.5bn (pounds 20bn) last year, down from ecu31bnthe year before. EU foreign ministers met Yohei Kono, their Japanese counterpart, last week in Paris to prepare for the meeting.The EU likes to think (and likes Japan to think) that it is a more considerate, intelligent and engaged interlocutor than the US. “The European Union has chosen to give priority to multilateralism and to respect WTO rules rather than confrontation, which appears to be the American line,” said Herve de Charette, the French foreign inister, after last week’s meeting.It also likes to think that this works. An EU-Japan summit is planned for 19 June in Paris, bringing President Jacques Chirac, commission president Jacques Santer and Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama together just after the Group of Seven industrialised countries meet in Canada. The EU is attempting to underpin relations with Japan, and the campaign is at an important stage of development. It cannot be far from Sir Leon’s mind that the US in its present mood might apply aggressive tactics to other trading partners, including Europe.There is third, longer-term consideration.

But as David Blake, of Goldman Sachs, has pointed out, another provision in the treaty could bring the effective decision point a great deal closer. Remember that the Maastricht Treaty says that EMU can only be launched in 1997 if a majority of the member states meet the convergence criteria by then Everyone accepts that this will not now happen. However, if the 1997 date is missed, then the heads of government must, by 1 January 1999, set another date for the start of EMU. The date could in theory be after 1999, though that was not the intention of the treaty.This all still seems a comfortable distance into the future. If we do nothing, we could be choosing by default to stay out of EMU. Although the paper will presumably accept that 1997 is no longer possible as a start date, it will not abandon the possibility of 1 January 1998. And the run-up to a 1998 launch – or even a launch in 1999 – means that Britain could face some critical decisions much earlier than it would like.

But in fact it is far from clear that events on the other side of the Channel will remain conveniently frozen in aspic until we have gone to the polls.
On Wednesday, the Commission will publish its long-awaited Green Paper on the transition to stage three of EMU. This suited the British Government, which wants to shuffle the crunch decision until well into the next parliament. Late last year, almost everyone in the European Union, including the Commission, began tacitly to accept that the first possible date for the launch of EMU (1 January 1997) was a dead duck. For the moment, it seems that the protaganists are content to let slumbering dogs lie. One reason for this unusual British reticence is that the issue seemed to have slipped down the agenda in Brussels.

Furthermore, a detailed and sceptical report on the subject by the Treasury’s Independent Forecasting Panel passed into oblivion. Last week, for example, nobody noticed that Tony Blair’s comprehensive speech on Labour’s economic strategy failed to devote a single one of its 9,000 words to the subject. European monetary union has imperceptibly slipped from centre stage in the UK political debate in recent months. Members of the staff union Unifi and the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union will join forces to picket around 150 of Barclays’ 2,000 branches.
Barclays will face calls for further talks over pay but the bank insists the settlement is “fair and competitive” and has been boosted by a profit sharing bonus of 7.5%.Unifi said today that Barclays had backed down from its threat to sack staff involved in the strike and the union now expects most of its 40,000 members to support the action.Most branches will be closed or will operate on a skeleton staff and those which do open will only offer “minimal services”, said general secretary Paul Snowball.He said staff had been awarded below inflation pay rises for four years in a row and although bonuses were given, they were discretionary and non-pensionable.”The bank faces a virtual shutdown tomorrow and we are confident most of our workers will support the strike,” he said tonight.Unifi claims its 5,000 members who work as managers are pressing to be ballotted over pay and could join any future strikes.Unifi’s executive will meet on Thursday to decide its next move in the dispute.Barclays has said it will do everything it can to ensure inconvenience to customers is kept to a minimum tomorrow.end mt.

“They can just come to enjoy the sunshine and the rain but if they come with their heart and head and body and soul I will be providing something for that breadth of human activity.”. Sir Hugh Annesley, Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, has given an upbeat assessment of the prospects for continuing peace in Northern Ireland, expressing optimism that the paramilitary ceasefires will hold. But he warned that the IRA still retained the capacity to go back to violence, and that some of its members favoured a return to its campaign of terror.
Sir Hugh’s assessment, given in an interview in Police magazine, is in line with his previous generally optimistic statements that the cessation of violence would continue. It is also in line with the widely-held view that, with the first anniversary of the IRA ceasefire approaching at the end of August, each passing month makes it more difficult for the organisation to contemplate a return to shooting and bombing.While Sinn Fein leaders such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have warned in recent months about a crisis in the peace process, there have been no real indications that the republicans were approaching the point of abandoning it and staging a return to war.At the same time, Sir Hugh made the point that not all in the IRA ranks thought along the same lines as their leaders. He said: “There is little doubt that the leadership of the IRA wants the peace to hold, but there are significant pockets of the volunteers on the ground who would like to go back to the ‘war effort’.”They are still training. They are still quartermastering arms and that, in part, is to keep the volunteers happy – give them something to do. A more sinister side of it must be that, if there was an impasse on the way forward, there is at least a potential to go back to it But in my view, at this stage, it is not likely.

On balance, I think I remain optimistic that the peace process will hold.”. The Royal Navy’s new pounds 5bn frigate, designed to take the service into the next century, may be late coming into operation and could spiral in price, warns a report published today. A study from the National Audit Office, the public finance watchdog, concludes that the planned deadline for the frigate, intended to be the navy’s main line of defence against missile and aircraft attack, “may be overly optimistic”. The 2,002 date “will require careful management if it is to be achieved”, the NAO said.
Being developed jointly by Britain, France and Italy, the frigate will replace the navy’s Type 42 destroyers. Until now, the delivery date for the ship – known as the Common New Generation Frigate – has remained secret. Its building programme, said the report, “is likely to be one of the most complex warship procurements ever undertaken by the Ministry of Defence”.This is the second time the MoD has tried to collaborate with overseas partners on a new frigate.

In the 1980s, the UK was a member of the Nato Frigate For the Nineties project, which broke down because of disagreements over individual country’s requirements.That failure and the experience of other joint venture projects such as the Eurofighter, which have also been the subject of scrutiny from the NAO and MPs on the Commons Public Accounts committee, do not augur well for the new 21st century vessel.Ultimately, the UK is expected to purchase 12 of the frigates compared with Italy’s five and France’s three. Medium-sized corporate customers who are strong exporters were fairly buoyant while small business and personal customers were still showing uncertainty, he said.. The division made pounds 201m in the first half of last year. He said the bank was spending money, pounds 40m in the first half, on developing NatWest Markets.Another area of concern for analysts is costs – NatWest has the highest cost-to-income ratio in the sector. Wanless defended the bank’s performance on costs as its cost-to-income ratio rose to 68.9 per cent compared to 67.6 per cent a year ago, but below the 70.8 per cent in the second half last year.Apart from NatWest Markets, Mr Wanless said these included Coutts, NatWest Bancorp in the United States and its finance-house subsidiary Lombard North Central, which reported first-half profits down to pounds 105m from pounds 111m last time.Domestically, Mr Wanless said the picture was “patchy”.