The oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico looks about the worst man-made environmental disaster since Chernobyl. Its cause appears to be risky well management from the lead company BP and the American population has rightfully poured barrels of scorn on them.
It hardly helped the corporation when it massively understated the scale of the daily flow and one of its execs described it as "tiny" ccompared to the size of the Gulf.
However BP has recently found an allay in the Daily Mail who has taken exception to President Obama bashing 'British Petroleum' as a swipe at our entire nation. Mail columnist Amanda Platell (above) said on BBC's Question Time, the "anti-British" sentiment was seriously harming the relations between Washington and London to the extent we should consider withdrawing our troops from Helmand.
The Mail often rages against Europe in this little Englander manner (although Platell is Australian) so it is unusual to lay into our oldest ally the US. But the only way the Mail can make this story run as if Obama and the US media had broadened their anger to any other aspect of Britishness or Britain. The plain fact is they haven't.
Platell and other polemicists seem to expect us to take this leap of logic. Their approach is more akin to Fox News where the extreme edge of a story is placed as the mainstream.
And in the end the Mail looks like they are defenders of a company whose reckless decision-making will cause long-lasting damage to 1,500 miles of coastline. And not forgetting 11 rig-workers were killed in the initial explosion.
It's rather like sympathising with a bully who has hurt his hand beating an old lady.
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