Many have been left wondering whether the racehorse-loving Idaho-drawling Orie Dudley, chief executive officer of Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, was playing a political game when he spoke to a Reuters journalist last week about Lloyds TSB's reluctance to back asset management as a core business.

As always, Dudley drew parallels to his first love, racehorses. 'We are like a one-year-old racehorse who shows great potential, but they are not sure yet and we haven't got the stable's commitment to train it and turn it into a truly-champion two-year-old or three-year-old.