My, My - The Brits Don't Like Our BP Bad Mouthing

“British investors in BP are growing increasingly frustrated with the White House’s involvement and comments about the company’s efforts to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and partly blame politicians for the sharp drop in the share price” according to a report in the New York Times. It appears that the United States government and victims of the worst ever environmental disaster are being too hard on the beloved British Petroleum of the United Kingdom.

Its all about money! As BP shares plummet, in Britain there is more concern about the poor stockholders and less concern about the environmental fiasco BP is responsible for. Some quotes to get your blood boiling or as the Brits say “ too get your tea boiling”.

• “BP has many problems in the U.S., One of them is that it has the word British in its title.”

•  “It’s a totally over politicized situation. There is a disconnect between reality and BP being totally lambasted.”

•  “We don’t have all the press coverage that’s over there and we’re further away from U.S. politics. We have a more rational view.”

•  “What people forget is that if anyone breaks a pipeline, you’d thank god that it was a company that can actually pay for it”.

The next step may very well be for the Brits to man a full court press in an attempt to get Washington to take it easy on poor BP. Barack should invite them to Louisiana to discuss the problem in a town hall meeting. The Brits may learn that it is not the word British that is BP’s problem, it’s the word petroleum and it doesn’t belong on the beaches and the marshlands.