Is peace about to break out between the USA and Britain?

[BilSuth]

Now that BP's new trouble-shooter is an American, Bob Dudley, can we expect a reduction in the anti-British feeling over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Brits are sometimes said to be xenophobic but it does not compare with the trigger-happy way American politicians, not ordinary folk, have been all too eager to blame Johnny Foreigner, in this case a British-owned oil company.
I don't remember an irrational wave of anti-American feeling from us Brits after the Piper Alpha disaster, which cost 64 lives in 1988.

[Clanad]

Not only a Yank, but southern yank to boot... from Mississippi, no... can't get better than that and he's laid back, not wound nearly as taut as the previous CEO. You have to admit, from an American's point of view, referring to the hoi polloi as the "little people", wanting his life "back" and going yacht racing didn't help much... Most of us like you Brits though... except, what's that thing about tea?

[jno]

well, everyone adds water, Clanad, but few would go so far as to dunk it in the harbour before drinking.

The thing is, from a British point of view, going yacht racing *is* laid back - just not the sort of laid back Americans wanted to see. I think it's fair to say most of his words and actions wouldn't have been seen here as being nearly as outrageous as they appeared to US eyes.

[Clanad]

I think you're probably right, jno, plus the fact that this semi-failed administration needed a bad guy to divert attention from the mulitude of government failures in this tradgedy (13 lives lost in the initial explosion) especially the President's transparent efforts at covering his own lack of action and interest... but I could be just sceptical....

[jno]

oh, I think Hayward clearly failed to read the American mood - a genuine case of subtle cultural difference. BP should probably have put up an American spokesman right from the start. It seems to me they are not entirely to blame for the fiasco - they were operating on the edge of technological possibility, and they fell over; but the lack of a Plan B seems to have been officially approved. Plus some of the problems seems to have stemmed from subcontracted work. In short, a problem of globalisation that was perhaps handled in a parochial (British-accented) manner. Wouldn't surprise me if BP's PR supremos were next for the guillotine.

[BilSuth]

I agree with both of you, that wayward Hayward was a PR disaster. But the reaction in terms of anti-Brit feeling, especially by blame-somebody-else politicians, was to say the least unfortunate. Some of it rubbed off on the world cup football match between England and USA - just as well the Ryder Cup golf is not until September when hopefully relations should be back to normal.

[fredpuli47]

What anti-British feeling? It's more like 'anti-giant corporation which adopts a cavalier attitude to safety and the world in the pursuit of profit' feeling !. An American giant multi- national would have suffered the same. The CEOs of American car companies and American banks, and their companies, have suffered the same public revulsion in recent times.

[BertiWooster]

Ah - The British and the Americans - Divided by a common language .

And , whats this thing about a -

' trunk' of a car
' sidewalk '

' i ' raq

And why do you drive on the wrong side o the road ?

[ludwig]

There'll probably be a film about this at some point starring Alan Rickman as Lord Tony Hayward, the sneering British villain who personally and deliberately left the safety catch off the oil well to save money for the bank of England and King George thus risking brave American lives.
In the end he gets his ass quite literally kicked by Denzel Washington as Obama, and is banished to Siberia. Steven Seagal steps in as Bob Dudley, and everyone lives happily ever after. Mel Gibson in a bright red wig will play the plucky Irish American diver Sean O'Shaunessy who sacrifices himself to swim down and personally screw the cap on the gushing oil.
..or perhaps not.

[jno]

Berti, my English teacher once pointed out to me that if an Englishman says 'I'm mad about my flat' he's happy with his accommodation; if an American says it he's annoyed that he's got a puncture.

[BilSuth]

I agree entirely, Fred, about multinationals and especially oil companies with their lousy records in terms of health and safety and the environment. Totally agree. But much of the media-driven publicity coming across the Atlantic highlighted the Brit angle. The politicians are not so keen on criticising anti-social capitalist institutions as such. That's the system we are all stuck with.

[Clanad]

Many of us are hoping that come November 2 of this year, we won't be stuck with the entire socialist moving government were stuck with now. Everyone was so enamored of electing the first "black" president and perhaps, in the deal, ridding ourselves of an ill-founded national guilt over 200 year old slavery that we overlooked the primary requisite for holding the office... experience. (Gives a great monitor prepared speech, though). So, come election day, we'll see if the first chinks in the armor are truly vulnerable and then move forward to returning some sanity in total with the Presidential election in 2012...

[BilSuth]

Good idea Ludwig. A few possibilities. Maybe the movie would have different titles on both sides of the Atlantic, and to spoil its effectiveness, it would need to be dubbed in French or German with English subtitles for the utterly bewildered. In due course there could be a totally unnecessary remake (aren't they all?) with an even more far-fetched ending.

[rojash]

" we overlooked the primary requisite for holding the office... experience."
Hardly the first time you lot have done that, though, is it?
In fact looking back over the last 50 years, with a few minor exceptions, it would seem that the primary requisites are be corruption, arrogance and idiocy in varying proportions.

[jake-the-peg]

It seems to me that Americans tend to like to see things in black and white.

See Clanad's view of Obama :c)

That's why Katrina was such a problem - it was difficult to find someone to blame for a natural disaster like that, there was no Bin Laden.

So they ended up finding some way to lay it at Bush's door. There were lots of failings but there always are in any disaster.

So the Americans are looking for a bad guy for the oil spill and they have a choice of a foreign head of a big oil multinational or a relatively obscure (to the public at least) US drilling company.

No contest really is it?

My advice if you meet any anti-american sentiment is to ask them if they remember a place called Bhopal

[ludwig]

Anti-british you mean Jake?. To be fair I don't think there's as much of that as it would seem. I agree with your assessment. It just suits various interests over there to play on that aspect of things for their own different reasons.
As you say, it makes things a bit more black and white if there's an obvious villain to point at.

[cc1]

I have travelled fairly extensively and the level of xenophobia in America is without precedence anywhere!
There is a breathtaking level of innocence in what people believe, 3 things spring instantly to be befuddled mind.
In the Smithsonian Museum, worth a visit to DC in themselves, the space section had no mention of...........Yuri Gagarin. John Glenn started space travel.
In 1992, listening to a report from the Barcelona Olympics, we had 5 minutes eulogising the American 100m runner who won the Silver. At the end, in a muttered, rushed statement, came and the gold was won by Britain's Linford Christie"
Watching a military display on the Ellipse in DC, called a Tattoo, the commentator proclaimed "the world's finest drill team ", as a group in scruffy uniforms tried to look smart marching and throwing bayonets around, unseccessfully, on grass. The crowd went orgasmic with national fervour. The then well known phrase, "they're good but not that good" sprung to mind.
Love the country, off again in September, not at all anti-American

[jno]

well, that's not really xenophobia, cc1, more like parochialism. Americans don't get out much (was it only 20% have passports?) but I've always found them immensely kind and friendly to strangers, to a degree you'd never get in Britain.

[fredpuli47]

Yes, it's more parochialism than xenophobia.The old joke about geography was that Americans only know where a country is if the US is fighting in it ! And the US is so big that Americans feel little need to leave it on vacation.But the Americans I've met when there were very friendly and surprisingly curious about Britain and Europe in general.

And when you are brought up, as many seem to be, with an unquestioning belief that your country is the one country in the world which is closer to perfection than any other in all respects and could never learn anything from the rest of the world, intense parochialism is inevitable.. If it wasn't thought of here in the US, it can't have been thought of !( I also have difficulty understanding the adjective un-American, but they don't. It doesn't translate . What is un-British or un-French for example ?)

[Hopkirk]

Americans seem a tad confused by the phrase 'to bum a fag'

[ludwig]

//And when you are brought up, as many seem to be, with an unquestioning belief that your country is the one country in the world which is closer to perfection than any other in all respects and could never learn anything from the rest of the world, intense parochialism is inevitable.. //

It's exactly how the British used to think when Britain was the most powerful nation in the world. Some of us still do apparently. The payback for that arrogance is that you end up as everyone's pantomime villain when you fall on harder times, with all the countries you used to lord it over queuing up to give you a metaphorical kick up the elbow.