UR TV CAST

“The proposal will be defeated, and it would be better for the Board to withdraw it.”* Our Prime Minister is certainly a dedicated follower of fashion. The naked women on the cuffs of his Paul Smith shirt made a statement, as did the Burberry polo top he wore last summer Good to see, therefore, that he isn’t letting things slip. Opponents to his proposal are now openly claiming they have won their battle to block the rule change.The result of the ballot is not due to be announced until 27 September, but already the former Conservative chief executive, Barry Legg, who is leading the charge against Maude’s proposals, claims victory.”All our canvassing has support running for us at two to one, which is in far excess of the blocking third we merely need,” he tells me. Fawcett now works for HRH as an “events organiser”, but initially shot to fame when it was revealed that his duties involved squeezing the Royal toothpaste tube.Speaking to a group of guests at a recent charity dinner hosted by the Prince, Fawcett announced rather grandly: “Whenever we are in Venice, we stay at the Danielle Hotel.”During a lull in conversation, one prominent American visitor was heard to mutter: “I wonder where Camilla stays.”* Another day passes and brings news of more confusion in the marathon battle to become the next Tory leader.The party chairman, Francis Maude, who is behind controversial plans to deny grassroots members a vote in the forthcoming leadership contest, will be losing sleep. But the offer she put in was, to be honest, paltry.”Instead, the flat has gone to the progeny of another rock old timer: Gala Wright, whose father Rick is the keyboard player in Pink Floyd.* Having – just about – weathered the storm that surrounded the publication of the Public Accounts Committee investigation into his Duchy finances, Prince Charles could do with some good publicity now.It is with unfortunate timing, then, that the Prince’s chief lackey Michael Fawcett has opened his mouth. But her offer was turned down smartly.”It’s a beautiful loft-style apartment, with a big balcony and tons of space,” says my mole “It’s clear to see why she’d like it as a London pad. But I was amazed by how receptive Channel 4 was to my pro-toff thesis on the whole, so I don’t think that’s why it was cut.

I probably wasn’t as good a presenter as I was in the bits we filmed later on.”* Jade Jagger may be the offspring of one of Britain’s richest musicians – and herself the creative director of the Bond Street jewellers Garrard – but she has clearly inherited some of her father’s tendency to be careful with money.Jagger until now happily living in Ibiza, recently put in an offer on a flat in Queen’s Park.The area is not yet one of London’s trendiest, but is still within spitting distance of the smart boutiques and bars of Notting Hill, where Jagger spends much of her time when in the country. And while it was fine for him to rant about the pleasures of fox hunting, because that’s already been banned, we didn’t want to screen a passionate argument in favour of another controversial blood sport.”When Pandora called Delingpole, he confirmed the scenes had been cut from the broadcast, but denied that censorship was to blame.”It was really sad that the shoot didn’t end up in the film,” he tells me “It looked absolutely beautiful. He rode with a hunt, quaffed champagne in Mayfair, and (more doubtfully) posed in a Ferrari.
However, viewers didn’t see the presenter taking pot shots at pheasants – an experience which he describes as “brilliant” – during a visit to Hampshire, because programme-makers cut the scenes.”The channel wasn’t happy about showing too much blood and feathers,” says a C4 insider “Delingpole came out strongly in favour of shooting. * Class war lives on.

Channel Four provided a surprising defence of the aristocracy in a documentary broadcast at the end of July, but the broadcaster drew the line when it came to showing toffs picking off our feathered friends. The British Upper Class showed the journalist James Delingpole indulging in a series of upper-crust pursuits. Undoubtedly, RBS’s record so far in the US is impressive, but furthering the empire will be challenging work.. Several critics doubt whether the millions it is spending on raising the profile of the RBS brand will really make an impact in the US.They add that RBS’s decision to keep the Charter One name in the Mid West – where there is another Citizens bank – further hampers RBS’s attempts to convey the impression of a seamless financial behemoth.Ambivalence about RBS’s chances might seem unfair to Sir Fred, who has shown that he can beat British banks with more long-standing international ambitions at their own game. HSBC not only has a business that is about the same size as RBS’s in the US, but also a much larger presence in places such as Canada and Latin America, where many potential US clients want to trade and therefore might need a bank.

RBS is also competing against Barclays, which has recovered from past US d?cles to build a significant presence through its fixed-income arm, Barclays Capital, and also Barclays Global Investors, its asset management business, in the US.Another concern is that unlike HSBC and Barclays, which use their main brand for all or most of their business in the US, RBS’s strategy is seen as muddled by some. RBS said it does not want to compete with them in investment banking, on the grounds that earnings from mergers and acquisitions and large equities trading operations are volatile.It also faces stiff competition in corporate banking from some home-grown rivals. Indeed, such are the scale of the changes that RBS’s audit committee is understood to be planning a visit to the US in the autumn to scrutinise its finances and the integration of Citizens with the CBFM arm.If RBS is becoming increasingly bold in its ambitions, there are sceptics who wonder whether it can take the next step in the US, bringing it into the same league as banks such as Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. It has added 250 business banking experts to Citizens’ branches, in the hope they will be able to use this base to sell products to small and medium-sized businesses, especially in areas such as Chicago and Detroit gained through the Charter One deal.The expensive marketing budget is also thought to be an attempt to capture larger business clients, who might not be enticed by the idea of using Citizens, still a parochial lender, but might by attracted by RBS’s international reach. But Mr Cameron did tell analysts that “all will be revealed” on 3 October, when RBS will update investors generally about its future plans.Those plans are thought to include far more integration of Citizens and CBFM. He observed: “A country the size of America needs more than three.”RBS is remaining tight-lipped at the moment about exactly how it aims to scramble up to the heights of such major corporate banking players as Bank of New York and Wachovia.