BP dispute: Bend over and assume the position, Mr Cameron

So the Prime Minister is going to Washington on July 20th, at which time it is safe to assume that the sub-oceanic gusher is still gushing away and that one will still be able to fill up one’s Buick from the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not often I can drum up real sympathy for my former FCO colleagues, but I do feel just a bit for the poor chaps and chapesses in Washington and King Charles Street currently (and I do mean currently, this being Sunday lunchtime) working on the visit preparation.
As a diplomatic imbroglio, this one might have defeated Talleyrand. How to maintain and restore the worn fabric of the “special relationship” while causing justice to be seen to be done for the misdoings of a US/UK company with a British-derived name? No-one can blame the American people for being angry. But managing that anger seems as difficult as capping the oil leak. Thank heaven we didn’t exacerbate it by winning the footy.

Americans are always keen, where possible, to reduce any issue to one they can chant “USA! USA!” about. And the problem is that, though BP is an international company owned by shareholders all over the world (with US and UK holdings almost equivalent), everybody knows what the “B” originally stood for. The USA doesn’t have that much history, but what it has focuses understandably on the nation’s genesis and resisting King George’s redcoats. It’s an easy button to press. President Obama assures us he is not anti-British and has no wish to lay the blame on Britain: but his frequent references to the company’s former name are a bit disingenuous. Over here we recognise the sound of a dog-whistle when we hear one.

Furthermore, the President has also lapsed into the kind of down-home language everyone likes to hear, by talking about “kicking ass”. The trouble with that is the usual trouble with politicians’ promises: pretty soon people are going to be asking for evidence of ass duly kicked. Saying that he would have sacked Tony Hayward if Hayward had worked for him won’t do: a hypothetical ass-kicking is not enough. Not only can Obama do nothing meaningful about BP: he wouldn’t even want to. As Cameron has been rightly pointing out to him, serious damage to BP would be serious damage to both UK and US economies.

Threats to prevent the payment of dividends would also be an own goal (or a “Robert Green” as they are now known). There are as many pensioners over there who would be affected as over here. A ban on any BP employee being paid more than $100,000 this year would be a far better symbolic gesture, but it ain’t going to happen. In any case, Americans believe the sky would fall in if “executives” were not “compensated” according to their “status”.

This means that the circle will have to be squared diplomatically. If ass is going to be kicked without lousing up economic recovery, a sop will have to be thrown to the spirit of George Washington. The Southern States will not forgive Obama for missing such a fine opportunity to apply the shoe-leather. Somehow the impression has to be given that the limeys have got what was coming to them. I hope that the FCO furnishes the Prime Minister with a couple of nice thick files to insert in his trousers.