‘Ello, guvna
Brits getting defensive regarding BP The British – some of them, at least – are beginning to take President Obama’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward BP personally. And that’s in part because of a well-founded fear that his tough talk will hurt many of their retirees financially.
Lord Norman Tebbit, former Conservative minister of trade and industry, said on his website this week that he found Obama’s attitude “despicable”:
“The whole might of American wealth and technology is displayed as utterly unable to deal with the disastrous spill – so what more natural than a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political presidential petulance against a multinational company?” he wrote.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said in a radio interview, “I do think there’s something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America. I would like to see a bit of cool heads rather than endlessly buck-passing and name-calling.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron is being criticized for commiserating with Obama. He is being urged to “stand up” for BP in a phone conference the two leaders have scheduled for this weekend.
BP is Britain’s largest corporation, and its shares and dividends are critical to the country’s pension funds. But since the oil spill, the value of the oil giant’s shares have fallen by half. Its dividends count for one pound out of every six flowing into the pension funds, but Obama has urged that the company quit paying dividends until the spill is paid for.
The Daily Mail quoted a London financial executive as saying that instead of Obama having his boot on the throat of BP, as the president famously threatened, he “has his boot on the throat of British pensioners.”
Some British political commentators accuse Obama of “jingoism” and say that statements that BP CEO Tony Hayward should be fired and “I want to know whose ass to kick” are transparent attempts to deflect blame for the so-far-ineffective response to the spill from the White House to BP.
Obama’s critics see the president’s use of the name “British Petroleum” – it was changed in 1998 – as somehow involving the the Brits in the blame.
Evening Standard columnist Christ Blackhurst sneered, “BP has not called itself British Petroleum for more than 10 years. It’s not the only one to not use its full name. Barack Hussein Obama is another.” Getting personal, indeed.
Scripps Howard News Service