Have Britain and America fallen out ‘big time’?

The fact that one of our largest companies, BP, has covered America’s beaches and nature reserves in oil has apparently driven a rift between the two countries the size of the Atlantic Ocean.

The turmoil began on the 20^th April, when BP’s ‘Deepwater Horizon’ oil rig blew up, killing 11 crew member. The US Government are angry because the rig did not have proper measures installed, and had malfunctioning equipment that was not repaired, so  thousands of barrels per day have since leaked from the snapped pipe beneath the destroyed oil rig. What the USA are also annoyed about is the fact that the rig did not have a cut off valve on the pipe, so that when the pipe to the rig snapped, oil was free to pump out into the Gulf of Mexico, even though US law does not say that such equipment is necessary, which is the case in all European oil drilling nations. The two nations, which for the past century have been about as separable, in the immortal words of Edward Blackadder, as “a Frenchman living next to a brothel”, have fallen out hugely over the disaster. It seems that somehow, us giving America a ‘thousand barrels per day’ of black gold, is wrong! I suppose it is quite like a homeless man throwing an oil drum full of pound coins at Bill Gates!

Barack Obama, saviour of the world, has even likened the spill to 9/11. Okay America, so why don’t you invade France over their “weapons of mass destruction” , steal their oil, and then come after us when Tony Hayward, the ‘most hated man in America’ has already gone to hide in some cave in Scotland.

Having said all that, I don’t even dislike America.

Some of their ideas, such as the cheeseburger, Television dramas, and Sarah Palin are not all bad.

But still, can Obama not see that torturing BP is really not doing any good for anyone? BP, as David Cameron so valiantly praised it, is the provider of millions of British pensions. At a time when the world is only just emerging from the largest recession for 70 years, is it really a good thing to prod one of the most fragile and major economies in the world? It is very irresponsible of America. If anything, they should be to blame, for the lack of legislation in their laws that states that oil rigs must have a ‘Blowout Preventer’, as the laws of nearly every other major drilling nation says there must be. BP didn’t really do anything wrong, they did not go against US law any more than any of the US oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A US public servant hired to look at the rest of the oil rigs in the bay said that every single other company was not prepared for if such a horrific event happened on any of their rigs. All of them had just the same faults as BP did, and any such accidents on any other rig would result in the same catastrophe as is currently happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that the Gulf of Mexico spill is a horrific incident, and the company involved should have to pay, but it is the fault of not just BP, but of the US government, of all of the companies drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and especially of human nature. So BP shouldn’t be the only one to pay. One thing is for certain, America should get out their buckets and scoop up the oil floating around in their bay, ‘cause BP certainly aren’t going to give them any more.

The Oil Slick