BP rebound falters after Moody's downgrade

Clearly BP doesn't spend enough on lobbyists...

This is such a stage managed affair just for the US audience and none other. Snide remarks, holding up pictures of birds covered in oil all serve nothing more useful than to get these idiots re-elected.

In 10 years time they'll be begging to get wells far worse than this drilled.

This felt horribly like an attack on Britain. I wonder if Obama and others over there realise how much damage they could be doing to our relationship with the USA

And not a mention of the American company which owned the rig and drilled the hole. Or the American company who said that they could cap the leak

Makes one feel like pulling out of that daft war in Afganistan and leaving the Americans to stew there

Yes, let us put down some sort of marker regarding our relationship with the USA; pulling out immediately from Afganistan would be an idea along those lines; we aren't needed there physically but to give moral support to the americans - if there is oil there they will have to stay on.

Our presence there and support enables the USA to deny their imperial instincts which they cannot admit to, since such an ambition is reprehensible As Niall Ferguson in his book Empire says in its summing up, referring to the carryings on of the USA about the world, that it is an empire, in short, that dare not speak its name. They have criticised the British empire and appear still to do so, they are to my mind, despite the eventual outcome of any judgement of BP, a disgusting bunch of hypocrites who need to look at themselves in the mirror very closely.

Leaving aside the sympathy I have for those affected by the leak, it is the political side of it that saddens me almost as much. Never can I recall an American President being so anti British as Mr Obama with his rhetoric. BP have NEVER said anything other than they would pay for the cleanup and compensate those who have financially lost by it but this week we have seen the very worse side of the way America works. We have seen BP bullied into submission into the $20 billion Escrow account, TV drama called a concressional hearing which resembled a witch hunt Mccarthy style, the Lynch mob baying for blood and of course no mention of the involvement of American companies who have responsibility as well. We all know that the Americans will not hold back in their money grap, especailly as it is a foreign company. I could go on about how saddened and discussed I feel about the American way right now, but the bottom line is this. A hatred of all things American will no doubrt grow in this country as a result, which I think is sad and not something I wish to see.

To those across the pond the releationship is all one way - American's take and don't give in our relationship and David Cameron should do to the American President as in the film 'love actually' tell Obama to get off our backs and we will not be jumping to the American tune any longer.i

First of all I would like to say that this spill is a tragic ecological and economic disaster for the whole gulf area, and should never have happened, and I can fully understand people being very angry.

Having said that, what I have seen of the proceedings so far is a disgrace. People were allowed in the room, with placards making unsubstantiated claims. This hearing is supposed to try to find the cause of the disaster, presumably to avoid it happening again, yet the ‘interrogators’ seem to have made up their minds already. They want full and instant answers while investigations into what went wrong are still in progress.

The United States is a great and just nation but in my opinion this hearing has so far made its representatives just look like bully boys.

Yes Danny Lovey, It is understandable that the people directly affected by the oil fallout are angry and upset, but Obama is doing the american people overall no favours at all; they will all be tarred by the same brush of disgust felt here at his intemperance, which as you infer, is a pity.

Urgh the hypocrisy is shocking and the media show, BUT if it were on our shores what would we be doing? A fear and possibly unjust is the scary thought of unlimited lawsuits, wrecking BP in the process, not to mention the countless number of British citizens losing the value in their shares and the dividend who thought this is such a safe company and didnt want to gamble on the stock markets. The potential unjustness and can we sue USA companies for their part in the broken well, oh and why not the american banks for helping us on our way to a global financial meltdown.

Just a few thoughts that is going around my head.

But really I actually have faith in that in the long run BP will do OK. In part because if this company went down, the stock market would not stage a recovery for a generation along with the fund management industry. Why would anyone invest it would be like going to a casino that is ultimately loaded against you. But then who thought Equitable Life would go.

It may have escaped the attention of all the Mail readers on here but BP is a multinational company and listed on both the NY and London stock exchange, not British at all. If they go bust, they go bust - tough. A lot of Americans will lose money as well. Invest smarter - that's the whole point of sites like CityWire

Its all very well saying invest smarter Chris, but many would have thought they were doing just that. You only have to attend the BP AGM in London,to see the hundreds of small investors who really do put pertinent questions to the board. I use the term small in that these are not the global fund managers who invest on their clients behalf.

American shareholders outweigh the British, and what a tragedy for all if it went down!

I just find it such a terribly sad reflection on them, that the Americans still find it necessary to have the odd Salem type do accompanied with the a little uncontrolled blood letting (on some foreigners passing as a special friend preferably).

It is also oh so sad that this lashing out often develops a special need for special freinds to be suckered in such as in Iraq.

But oh what happens when something like both are combined? When a genuine wholely owned US of A Inc really cocks up with a nearly special freind and a few thousand die in the short term with many more dieing slow twisted deaths over many years. What am I rambling about? Ever heard of Bohpal in India. As I recall, the yanks blessed the local with cyanide. Compensation amounted to a few pounds for a death and nothing for decendant (the currents generations dying get nought). The Indians were thrown to the wolves by the good old justice seaking America system.

Maybe the world started to apply a little of what is good for the goose etc, meanwhile----

With special friends like these----------

Chris, yours is a fatuous remark, BP has been a core holding in most portfolios due to its size and consistent excellent dividend, a very significant component of the footsie; the Citywire website itself has carried recommendations for investment in the company and Citywire is in any case only a source of general debate and commentary of the news in investment and other current affairs - not a source of unquestional prime financial advice.

The matter treated here is not whether BP is or was a good investment, but of the grossly biased - apparently anti British - reaction of the USA establishment and their president in particular to an extremely unfortunate accident - the cause of which is yet to be established and who is truly responsible - by a multinational company that the americans deem for some extraordinary convenience or prejudice to be wholly British. It would appear to be so that a Johnie Foreigner can be blamed and they themselves can be held in lily-white innocence of all involvement . On top of that Mr Obama appears, despite his denials, to hold some sort of resentment against the UK; or more specifically the British.

Americans have always been rather insular and (rightly or wrongly) they have picked on BP as an evil foreign company which has attacked America. The US courts will massacre BP over the coming years for their role in the Gulf spill.

They don't care that BP is responsible for clearing up the mess (not Mr President) and that putting their boot on BP's throat does nothing to assist them in this task. All they care about is making sure the blame goes to a "foreign" company which they can milk for every penny in damages.

Isn't Obama of Kenyan descent and didn't the Brits hold sway back in their Empire days?

do the math !

yes Sean, we've been all over that at various times; the matter stinks. I think the subject is now pretty well exhausted, though the Citywire news-hounds keep finding a new slant to taunt us with.

Can anyone remember the outcome of the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988?

A USA company, operating in British waters, with 167 lives lost; the greatest disaster, in lives-lost terms, of any oil rig incident.

How was the accident handled by the Thatcher government and how was the compensation apportioned?