Cameron’s BP problem

Now that the World Cup is under way, there’ll be a definite lull in the pace of government announcements. There’s no point in putting a good news story out only for it to end up on page seven behind six pages of World Cup coverage.

I suspect though that the BP story will keep rumbling on. Obama will keep on upping the rhetoric as he needs a target for the public’s anger that at the damage that’s been caused and that the spill hasn’t been stopped yet. The Louisiana state treasure is even speculating that the clean-up bill could bankrupt BP.

This puts Cameron in a very difficult position. If he doesn’t speak up for BP, the press here will criticise him for not standing up for a British company and British pensioners, most UK pension funds hold a substantial number of BP shares. But if he does, he’ll be picking a fight with the US president right at the beginning of his time in Downing Street.