Barack Obama: I’m not anti-British
Jonathan Oliver, Political Editor
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BARACK OBAMA yesterday told David Cameron that his aggressive stance towards BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster was not motivated by anti-British prejudice.
The US president, whose grandfather was allegedly tortured by the British in colonial Kenya, has pointedly referred to the oil giant as “British Petroleum”, although it changed its name nine years ago. British politicians claimed he was exploiting BP’s origins to deflect attention from his failure to manage the crisis.
After yesterday’s 30-minute telephone conversation, No 10 issued a carefully worded statement to defuse the growing transatlantic tensions. It stated: “President Obama said to the prime minister that BP was a multinational global company and that frustrations about the oil spill had nothing to do with national identity. The prime minister stressed the economic importance of BP to the UK, US and other countries. The president made it clear that he had no interest in undermining BP’s value.”
The softening of the row comes as BP prepares to offer new concessions to the US government, including a plan to set aside billions of dollars in a ring-fenced “clean-up fund”.
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