Demonised and Vilified

29th July 2010

'Sometimes you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus' grumbled the ex BP Chief in a fit of pique, blaming his plight on the unfairness of the press, whom he said had 'demonised and vilified' him. Of course, as we step off the pavement, most of us don't get hit by a bus carrying £12M in pension and payoff salary on our way to another job within the company with an expectation of up to £4M a year in pay and bonus to cushion the blow.

So Tony, a little advice, stop whinging and suck it up... like you should have in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lockerbie disaster II

22nd July 2010

On his first official visit to America, the Prime Minister David Cameron has taken a bit of a kicking from President Obama, BP is knocking out enough oil into the Gulf of Mexico to write it's initials in the water large enough to be seen from the moon, and Britain has announced it's military withdrawal plans from Afghanistan in 2014... However one thing Cameron isn't taking it on the chin for, is the Scottish Executives decision to release the ailing Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who seems to have made a miraculous recovery since his repatriation. As the drip, drip, drip of oil rings suspiciously in the ears of the American Senate, only time will tell if Scotland was acting with a compassionate heart or haggling in blood.

BP Chief boiled in oil

Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP is a walking PR nightmare. His original attitude to the scale of the Gulf of Mexico disaster hacked-off the American people, his handling of the problem hacked-off the President and now his stonewalling of questions has hacked-off Congress. His whining Facebook statement 'I just want my life back' hacked-off just about everyone else.

This smug, laconic, coiffured and bouffant geologist manages to make Monty Burns (of Simpsons fame) look like a sainted, patrician eco-warrior, even Burns would be unlikely to take time off the disaster management to race his yacht around the Isle of White...

It won't wash...

President Obama has made it clear that he feels BP haven't done enough to stop the tide of oil heading for his shores and for that he's going to make them pay.

On top of that looms the possibility of criminal proceedings against the BP executive, £44bn is wiped of their share price and they are downgraded from an AA+ company to AA.

The CEO must be ruing the day he went on TV looking nonchalant, suggesting that the environmental impact was going to be very small indeed...

Soon wild birds may not be the only thing struggling to keep their heads above water in the Gulf of Mexico.

Slick operators

The statement from BP's chief executive, that the huge oil spill swilling around in the Gulf of Mexico is going to end up having only a "very, very modest environmental impact" looks set to be a 'liar, liar, pants on fire' moment in his shining career.

BP's profits make all the more obscene the fact that this isn't a scenario that they had prepared for, nor have the ability to manage.

It's the law that we all drive with a spare in the car, because sooner or later we all get a bust tyre, perhaps BP ought to invest as much in 'it's 'spare tyre technology' as it does in it's 'sucking out all the oil technology'.

Falkland Oilands

It was always going to happen, from the moment oil was discovered around the Falkland Islands we were on a countdown to the Argentine Government getting the hump and muttering 'Malvinas' again.

Mind you this could be just what Gordon Brown needs, it certainly worked for Margaret Thatcher in 1982. Of course in 1982 we had a Navy... and an Army... and an Airforce to send.

Looks set to become 'the Mother of all kerfuffles'.