Leave him alone!

I, like Carla Delaney, really feel for the embattled BP boss Tony Hayward. His recent appearance in front of the US congress was a 7 and ½ hours grilling by politicians trying to make a name for themselves. Has it solved anything? NO! It was political gesturing for the benefit of the cameras. I do not remember the Exxon or the Union Carbide CEOs being grilled by the UK or Indian parliament, do you? Let’s not forget that your “special relationship” friends over the pond are less than cooperative when it comes to “mistakes” they make. Twenty six years have passed since Bophal, twenty three thousand people died so we are talking a lot more than a few fishes and the inconvenience of a few people in that have businesses on the coast.

Yesterday Tony Hayward went sailing with his teenage son and again the American media said that this was a PR mistake. After all, the guy had just been relieved of his duty on the spill. I am sure that he is entitled to a little bit of privacy and free time with his son. He is not only entitled to it, he deserves it. Mr Obama himself is quite partial to play golf although he has a vast amount of his own fellow citizens at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the spill and environmental disaster that it is causing is a catastrophe but the feeding frenzy of the media for one man is totally out of order.

Now that BP shares are at an all time low, watch some big American company buying cheap and suddenly price trebling again.

And while I am on the subject of the “special relationship” I would like to remind you, my British friends, of the one way street that this relationship seems to work. You sent people to war in Iraq and who got all the juicy contracts when it came to re-construction? When it comes to justice, try to extradite anybody from US and you will not get anywhere. However you seem a little more willing to send your own people to the US “justice” system i.e. the Natwest three and probably soon Gary McKinnon.

Isn’t it time for you to come back in the fold of Europe and be an integral part of where you naturally belong?