Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson come to the aid of BP as Cameron backs Obamas stance

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285467/BP-OIL-SPILL-Lord-Tebbit-Boris-Johnson-attack-Obamas-anti-British-rhetoric.html


Cameron fails to defend BP and sides with Obama

Boris Johnson: 'Buck passing and name calling' must end

Tebbit: 'This is partisan political Presidential petulance'
UK pension funds hit as shares plunge 6.7% on the FTSE
Obama warns oil giant not to pay shareholder dividend
BP chief Hayward summoned to meet Obama next week
He invites families of workers killed in rig blast to White House
Anger at President's use of old name - British Petroleum
Warning BP could be forced to compensate other oil firms


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/10/article-1285467-09F9E99C000005DC-918_306x394.jpg
David Cameron



David Cameron today refused to publicly back BP and instead expressed his sympathy for Barack Obama who has been an outspoken critic of the oil giant's handling of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Prime Minister at last weighed into the row after fellow Tory Boris Johnson ramped up the pressure by accusing the U.S. President of 'buck passing' and 'beating up' the British-based company. But instead of issuing a robust defence of one of the UK's biggest firms, he insisted he understood the U.S. leader's 'frustration' at the environmental catastrophe.

BP shares slumped again today, down 12 per cent to a 13-year-low on the FTSE at one point, after the U.S. threatened to block its dividend payments and amid increasing speculation it could be taken over. They eventually ended the day down 6.7 per cent on 365.50p. There was some good news as stocks rallied on Wall Street. They 16 per cent last night but were up 11 per cent when the Dow Jones opened this afternoon after the company insisted it could cover the costs of the disaster. Conservative Mayor of London Mr Johnson and former trade and industry secretary Lord Tebbit have both now openly attacked Mr Obama's anti-BP rhetoric, accusing him of 'petulance' and trying to shift the blame.

And experts have accused him of having his 'boot on the throat' of British pensioners because the company is such a major contributor to UK pension schemes. But Mr Cameron, speaking during a visit to Kabul, was at odds with his own party as he insisted he saw the U.S. leader's point of view. 'I understand the U.S. government's frustration because it is a catastrophe for the environment. Obviously everyone wants everything to be done that can be done. Of course that is something I will be discussing with the American president,' he said. His comments came as the U.S. leader piled more pressure on BP by inviting relatives of the 11 workers killed in the rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico to visit him at the White House.

White House aides said he offered his condolences to the families at the reception today but they were also asked if the victims ever expressed concerns about safety aboard the rig. Mr Obama is now set to meet BP chief Tony Hayward next week, according to White House sources. The leader has already said the executive should be sacked, setting the stage for a tense meeting. 'Though no final decision has been made, White House officials are planning to meet with Hayward, and the President will also likely have a few words to say to him,' one source told ABC.


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/10/article-1285467-09113698000005DC-824_306x423.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/06/10/article-1285467-0585AAF20000044D-890_306x423.jpg


Boris Johnson and Lord Tebbit


BP was Britain's biggest company before the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 and worth around £122billion but is valued has now halved. It is facing a huge billion-pound bill for the clean-up operation but its main worry is traders dumping their stocks due to fears of costly legal action and possible punishment by the U.S. Government. The company insisted today that its balance sheet was strong enough to cover all the costs of the spill but traders still rushed to ditch their stocks. They took fright after reports the U.S. Department of Justice was planning to 'take action' to make sure it can pay for any claims arising from the spill - construed as a threat to the dividend.

BP dividends account for around £1 in every £7 of share payouts from UK blue-chip firms and have not been slashed since 1992. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has also now told the Senate it will be asked to repay salaries to workers laid off because of the six-month ban on deepwater drilling imposed since the spill. In a further sign of public fury across the Atlantic, the windows of a BP petrol station in Memphis were shot out this week. Mr Obama's attacks - in the past week he has said he wants to know whose 'ass to kick' at BP and said its chief executive Tony Hayward should be sacked - have only fuelled concern for the firm. He has also sparked anger in the UK by insisting on using BP's former name - British Petroleum - which was axed back in 1998. Speculation is increasing that the oil giant could soon be a take-over target, with PetroChina Ltd. regarded as one potential suitor.

I am sick of this country being trampled upon, both by Europe and by the United States with Obama who is purposely pinning blames on BP in hope to up his ratings, not to mention the fact he keeps calling BP 'British' when BP changed its name in 1998. The man has no concept of anglo-american relations and seems to very much hate this country or dislike us (he has in the past ignored Gordon Brown). I am glad we have politicians like Boris Johnson and Lord Tebbit who will at least stand up for the United Kingdom even against its closest allies when they are wrong.

As for Dave, meet Blair v2.

Thoughts?

[MrPinkPanther]

*REMOVED* obama

Edited by Bolt660 (Forum Super Moderator): Please do not avoid the filter.

[GommeInc]

Of course BP are going to have difficulties handling it, the pipe/hole is incredibly deep and impossible to close at those levels. Instead of name calling they should just focus efforts on stopping it, especially when they get it all confused and mixed up seeing as BP is an international company. It's kinda like blaming Kraft for doing damage (somehow) in the UK, even though the company originates in the US. Every company has international staff to deal with issues in the country they work in, it's amazing how thick Obama and some other people are at the moment :/

[Misawa]

Yay for the Daily Mail, the worst paper in the history of everything.

[FlyingJesus]

Boris Johnson is probably my favourite man in the world no homo. Why exactly are the US trying to block dividend payments going out to shareholders who hold no responsibility at all for what's happened? I don't quite get that bit

[-:Undertaker:-]

Yay for the Daily Mail, the worst paper in the history of everything.

A great contribution there. So anyway, what newspaper do you read (i'll hazard a guess) - is it the Guardian while your sipping your nettle tea talking to your social worker/teacher friends about how everything is Margaret Thatchers fault? ..or are you just still caught up in Obamarama?

Back to the topic anyway, its disgusting Obama talks/slings mud about the United Kingdom in this way especially when we have British soliders out there dying for the unwinnable war that is Americans own quagmire. It is a shame that people like Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson dont get near the levers of power anymore because this country would be on the right track once again if that was the case. If Obama wants to hurt anglo-american relations then let him do so, but I doubt the American people will stand for it much longer and lets withdraw from Afghanistan while we are at it and leave the US to its futile little war.

[Wig44.]

A great contribution there. So anyway, what newspaper do you read (i'll hazard a guess) - is it the Guardian while your sipping your nettle tea talking to your social worker/teacher friends about how everything is Margaret Thatchers fault? ..or are you just still caught up in Obamarama?

Back to the topic anyway, its disgusting Obama talks/slings mud about the United Kingdom in this way especially when we have British soliders out there dying for the unwinnable war that is Americans own quagmire. It is a shame that people like Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson dont get near the levers of power anymore because this country would be on the right track once again if that was the case. If Obama wants to hurt anglo-american relations then let him do so, but I doubt the American people will stand for it much longer and lets withdraw from Afghanistan while we are at it and leave the US to its futile little war.

You have such a problem with generalisation, my mum is a social worker and is nothing like that. Just like people (yourself included) talk about social workers being at fault when the workload she is under is almost impossible for one person. Sure there are lazy people but the majority are hard working, over-worked and under constant pressure. This is the fault of the state.

So please don't generalise.

Edit: **** you David Cameron.

[-:Undertaker:-]

You have such a problem with generalisation, my mum is a social worker and is nothing like that. Just like people (yourself included) talk about social workers being at fault when the workload she is under is almost impossible for one person. Sure there are lazy people but the majority are hard working, over-worked and under constant pressure. This is the fault of the state.

So please don't generalise.

Edit: **** you David Cameron.

I am not complaining about social workers, just making a point on the paper. The fact is that most people who work in the public sector vote Labour because they rely on Labour for their pay rises, as the Daily Mail and most other papers complain about the amount of 'non-jobs' in the public sector they would be unlikley to buy them - maybe your mum buys them and hates Labour, I dont know. It is a generalisation yeah, but we know that the majority of people who read the Guardian (not many going by circulation figures) support a big public sector which at the end of the day is unfundable and wasteful.

I have not once blamed the people who work for the state, social workers are needed (although numbers of them are debatable) the same as most teachers, nurses, doctors and so forth. It is the non-jobs with titles such as 'Diversity Manager for Teeside North, £45k per year' because they are not needed and most can be found in the pages of the Guardian which recieves a lot of its income from government placed adverts for those sort of jobs. I am sick of Daily Mail/Telegraph etc attacks on here and everywhere by the left, its time they started debating and backing up their points rather than attacking papers which at the end of the day are only a news source.

[Jordy]

Edit: **** you David Cameron.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285467/BP-OIL-SPILL-Lord-Tebbit-Boris-Johnson-attack-Obamas-anti-British-rhetoric.html



Cameron fails to defend BP and sides with Obama

Boris Johnson: 'Buck passing and name calling' must end

Tebbit: 'This is partisan political Presidential petulance'
UK pension funds hit as shares plunge 6.7% on the FTSE
Obama warns oil giant not to pay shareholder dividend
BP chief Hayward summoned to meet Obama next week
He invites families of workers killed in rig blast to White House
Anger at President's use of old name - British Petroleum
Warning BP could be forced to compensate other oil firms

I am sick of this country being trampled upon, both by Europe and by the United States with Obama who is purposely pinning blames on BP in hope to up his ratings, not to mention the fact he keeps calling BP 'British' when BP changed its name in 1998. The man has no concept of anglo-american relations and seems to very much hate this country or dislike us (he has in the past ignored Gordon Brown). I am glad we have politicians like Boris Johnson and Lord Tebbit who will at least stand up for the United Kingdom even against its closest allies when they are wrong.

As for Dave, meet Blair v2.

Thoughts?While I agree with you in principal I do not think it's David Cameron you should be blaming. Instead you're just repeating the nationalist nonsense from the Daily Fail. How on Earth do you expect David Cameron to back up BP? He would severely damage Anglo-American relations and look a right fool if he were to do so. While BP is a British company and should not be bullied by the US government, it is BPs fault, they have caused an enormous environmental catastrophe and didn't have any plans to stop an oil leak should one of happened. They should not be let off scot-free and while I am pleased to see they're doing all they can, I can't fault their response, it lies with them and they are undefendable. You may have noticed that Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson are not defending BP, they are defending the UKs interests and attacking the USA which is different.

That's not to say I don't have issues with the US though, I believe they're guilty of double standards, they won't be held accountable for the Bhopal disaster for instance. They are also failing to help BP in their efforts to clear it up, while it is not their responsibility, it is within their interests to clear up the Gulf of Mexico as it's their fishing and tourism industries which will be damaged for years to come and not BPs. They also have no right to criticise Britain or use us as a scapegoat, it is also worth noting that if Thatcher hadn't privatised BP in the 80s, the UK government would be to blame so thanks once again Thatcher :P

I do not believe it's up to Cameron to criticise the US's handling of the issue though, it's not his place to do so and at the end of the day it's their mess, Cameron would be just as guilty of damaging the Anglo-American relationship if he was to do so. So yes I do agree with you Dan, but I also think Cameron said the right things.

[Fez]

A great contribution there. So anyway, what newspaper do you read (i'll hazard a guess) - is it the Guardian while your sipping your nettle tea talking to your social worker/teacher friends about how everything is Margaret Thatchers fault? ..or are you just still caught up in Obamarama?

Funny how I read the Guardian and talk to my working class friends about how Maggie saved Britain and brought us through the harshest times to a true modern era. :)

And I hate tea.

[dbgtz]

Obama sucks, end of. If he really wanted this "special relationship" then he would work with us then totally flame us, it's not our fault that it burst, thinks like that happen and he should live with it. Plus he isn't doing much in the way of peace. I'm hating on america atm, they can go **** themselves.

An accident doesn't exist anymore.

[RedStratocas]

it's not our fault that it burst

i think thats the problem with this whole debate, is people thinking that blaming bp is the same as blaming the entire british population for going underwater and cutting the pipeline. think of it in the way that you guys blame us for the global obesity epidemic, even though its not like everyone in the u.s. picked up some mcdonalds and brought them over to europe.

and jsyk obama is getting far far far more criticism for not being tough enough on bp. obviously hes been far too late and not very considerate of the response, but to act like bp is some innocent company that obama is bullying is silly. not only did they have exponentially more safety violations in the past three years than any other company drilling offshore (400 compared to less than 10 by the next leading violator), theyve been obstructing details of the spill (theyve had a high definition video of the spill for weeks but chose to let scientists who are helping to stop it see it only a few days ago), and theyre denying every new discovery of the scope of the spill, most recently underwater plumes. oh, and they're spending $50 million for ads apologizing for the crisis that has only gotten worse in the past week instead of spending that money on actually fixing it.

and im sorry but british troops in afghanistan is not a sign of the anglo-american bond, since i see you guys have just as big of a stake in the war as america does, we're not the only country attacked by terrorists. going to war together doesnt necessarily make you friends, as ww2 taught us.

[-:Undertaker:-]

While I agree with you in principal I do not think it's David Cameron you should be blaming. Instead you're just repeating the nationalist nonsense from the Daily Fail. How on Earth do you expect David Cameron to back up BP? He would severely damage Anglo-American relations and look a right fool if he were to do so. While BP is a British company and should not be bullied by the US government, it is BPs fault, they have caused an enormous environmental catastrophe and didn't have any plans to stop an oil leak should one of happened. They should not be let off scot-free and while I am pleased to see they're doing all they can, I can't fault their response, it lies with them and they are undefendable. You may have noticed that Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson are not defending BP, they are defending the UKs interests and attacking the USA which is different.

That's not to say I don't have issues with the US though, I believe they're guilty of double standards, they won't be held accountable for the Bhopal disaster for instance. They are also failing to help BP in their efforts to clear it up, while it is not their responsibility, it is within their interests to clear up the Gulf of Mexico as it's their fishing and tourism industries which will be damaged for years to come and not BPs. They also have no right to criticise Britain or use us as a scapegoat, it is also worth noting that if Thatcher hadn't privatised BP in the 80s, the UK government would be to blame so thanks once again Thatcher :P

I do not believe it's up to Cameron to criticise the US's handling of the issue though, it's not his place to do so and at the end of the day it's their mess, Cameron would be just as guilty of damaging the Anglo-American relationship if he was to do so. So yes I do agree with you Dan, but I also think Cameron said the right things.

David Cameron as British PM should be making it clear that to call BP British Petroleum is unacceptable, especially when half of the company is owned by Americans anyway between the merger of British Petroleum and the American oil giant a few years back, creating BP (which, again, does not have the word British in its title). I can only imagine what would be the response from the United States if one of their jointly owned companies had a disaster here and our Prime Minister kept calling it something like 'American Chevron' when it is not called that.

It is also right that the company is defended as £1 in every £6 in the British pensions system is apparently paid for by BP - do America and Britain want a Chinese oil giant to takeover yet another corporation in the west?


Funny how I read the Guardian and talk to my working class friends about how Maggie saved Britain and brought us through the harshest times to a true modern era. :)

And I hate tea.

As I said, a generalisation. If people want to attack papers then so be it, but the Guardian is no knight in shining armour.


i think thats the problem with this whole debate, is people thinking that blaming bp is the same as blaming the entire british population for going underwater and cutting the pipeline. think of it in the way that you guys blame us for the global obesity epidemic, even though its not like everyone in the u.s. picked up some mcdonalds and brought them over to europe.

and jsyk obama is getting far far far more criticism for not being tough enough on bp. obviously hes been far too late and not very considerate of the response, but to act like bp is some innocent company that obama is bullying is silly. not only did they have exponentially more safety violations in the past three years than any other company drilling offshore (400 compared to less than 10 by the next leading violator), theyve been obstructing details of the spill (theyve had a high definition video of the spill for weeks but chose to let scientists who are helping to stop it see it only a few days ago), and theyre denying every new discovery of the scope of the spill, most recently underwater plumes. oh, and they're spending $50 million for ads apologizing for the crisis that has only gotten worse in the past week instead of spending that money on actually fixing it.

and im sorry but british troops in afghanistan is not a sign of the anglo-american bond, since i see you guys have just as big of a stake in the war as america does, we're not the only country attacked by terrorists. going to war together doesnt necessarily make you friends, as ww2 taught us.

There is a difference between blaming the company BP and calling it British Petroleum which is he doing on purpose to try and put some sort of blame on the United Kingdom. The man has nothing in common with the anglo world which was proved by him snubbing Gordon Brown and now this. The man is not stupid, he knows what the company is called and he is cynically calling the company British Petroleum to pin blame on Britain, in time for the November elections.

The United States only entered World War II because it was attacked afterall (although I am grateful America eventually did enter), the treatment of the British Empire by the United States concerning the Suez crisis was a disgrace and the treatment from Obama is now also appaling, especially when we have remained staunchly (rightly or wrongly) alongside the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I have always been a supporter of the anglo-american relationship, but when my country is being screwed over it gets a bit tiresome.

[Fez]

As I said, a generalisation. If people want to attack papers then so be it, but the Guardian is no knight in shining armour.


More than agreed, but you shouldn't generalise that far.

[Wig44.]

While I agree with you in principal I do not think it's David Cameron you should be blaming. Instead you're just repeating the nationalist nonsense from the Daily Fail. How on Earth do you expect David Cameron to back up BP? He would severely damage Anglo-American relations and look a right fool if he were to do so. While BP is a British company and should not be bullied by the US government, it is BPs fault, they have caused an enormous environmental catastrophe and didn't have any plans to stop an oil leak should one of happened. They should not be let off scot-free and while I am pleased to see they're doing all they can, I can't fault their response, it lies with them and they are undefendable. You may have noticed that Lord Tebbit and Boris Johnson are not defending BP, they are defending the UKs interests and attacking the USA which is different.

That's not to say I don't have issues with the US though, I believe they're guilty of double standards, they won't be held accountable for the Bhopal disaster for instance. They are also failing to help BP in their efforts to clear it up, while it is not their responsibility, it is within their interests to clear up the Gulf of Mexico as it's their fishing and tourism industries which will be damaged for years to come and not BPs. They also have no right to criticise Britain or use us as a scapegoat, it is also worth noting that if Thatcher hadn't privatised BP in the 80s, the UK government would be to blame so thanks once again Thatcher :P

I do not believe it's up to Cameron to criticise the US's handling of the issue though, it's not his place to do so and at the end of the day it's their mess, Cameron would be just as guilty of damaging the Anglo-American relationship if he was to do so. So yes I do agree with you Dan, but I also think Cameron said the right things.

Personally I think Cameron should have taken a neutral stance.