Michael Meacher MP

As I said on Newsnight yesterday, Obama is attacking BP, not Britain.   He’s reacting exactly as we would if an American oil rig had blown up in the North Sea and a huge oil slick expanding by 40,000 barrels a day (8 times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989) was devastating the whole coastline of south-east England.   The Daily Mail telling Cameron to ‘stand up for Britain’ jars as usual with its shrill and false patriotism, wholly ignoring BP’s reckless and dangerous safety record over the years.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig was drilling at over 18,000 feet deep when it exploded, that is in depth half as high as Everest.   Anyone in the oil business will tell you that drilling at such depths is incredibly risky, even with the most conscientious oversight.   BP (revenues last year of $327bn) could and should spend far more on safety and environmental precaution.   Yet last year it devoted $16 millions on lobbying the US Federal Government in order to gain political access to minimize regulation, oversight and enforcement, as well as to seek leniency in circumstances such as the present one and to exercise a grip on the chief US safety watchdog, the Minerals Management Service.   (more…)