Britain's leading share index was down 0.2 percent ahead of the Bank of England's midday decision on interest rates, led by Unilever (ULVR.L), which disappointed investors by scrapping its sales and profit margin targets. The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee is expected to cut the bank's base lending rate by 50 basis points to 1 percent in view of what is already the fastest pace of economic decline in nearly three decades, but analysts were sceptical it would help. "The actual change in the base rate is going to do very, very little because we've had a massive cut over the period of the last few months and that hasn't changed the direction of the market at all," said Edward Menashy, economist at Charles Stanley. "If we are just looking at today I would reckon that it would require a minimum of a 1 percent cut if it's to have any impact at all on the market." The European Central Bank is expected to leave euro zone rates unchanged at 2 percent when it announces its verdict at 1245 GMT. By 1059 GMT the FTSE 100 index .FTSE was down 7.68 points at 4,220.92, snapping two days of gains. Unilever (ULVR.L) was the top faller, losing 5.7 percent after the consumer goods giant posted a 7.3 percent rise in fourth-quarter underlying sales, at the top of forecasts, but declined to give a specific outlook for 2009 or reaffirm its 2010 targets. Other food producers also fell, with Cadbury (CBRY.L) down 0.3 percent and Associated British Foods (ABF.L) losing 1.3 percent. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) slipped 1.9 percent ahead of its results due later in the day. "All in all there don't seem to be too many positive stories ... it is a fairly anaemic markdown across the board," said Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at Hargreaves Lansdown.

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