My old friend Iain Martin wonders if or when David Cameron will pick up the phone to have a word with the American President:
Well, maybe. As I suggested earlier, few parties are emerging from this mess with their dignity intact. Certainly, BP has pledged to do all it can – it’s in its interests to do so after all and would be even without being hectored by the White House – but it’s not obvious that there’s much mileage in defending BP.Team Obama has chosen to set about a British company with increasing ferocity. Will there come a point when Cameron decides that the British national interest and pride makes a measured intervention desirable? Even if it is simply to point out that BP has given endless commitments to clean up the mess and that ratcheting up the rhetoric against it is far from helpful. Other British based companies and those keen to see what Cameron is made of in terms of foreign policy will be watching closely.
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