BP - SHUT THE FUCK UP, OBAMA!

BP SHARES RISE IN BACKLASH AGAINST ATTACKS BY OBAMA
    

BP SHARES bounced back yesterday amid growing anger over President Barack Obama’s attacks on the British oil giant.

The markets were buoyed by pressure on politicians here from business leaders to stick up for Britain over reports that BP faces a £4billion bill for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The clean-up costs come after experts estimated in excess of 50,000 barrels of oil a day are spewing out – 10 times the figure given after the Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22. But the company was boosted by news that it had captured 15,400 barrels on Thursday and 88,700 barrels since a cap was installed over the leak a week ago. A “hard cap” system will be in place by mid-July, bringing oil-siphoning capacity up to 50,000 barrels per day, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.

BP’s shares have declined more than 40 per cent since the disaster, wiping £50billion from its market value but yesterday its shares rose 7.2% erasing much of Thursday’s loss.

BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg briefed Chancellor George Osborne about the leak yesterday. Afterwards he said: “We have done everything we can… and we have said we would do everything expected in cleaning up.” Asked if the Prime Minister needed to back the company, he said: “No comment.”

David Cameron was criticised yesterday after refusing to back Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who complained of “anti-British rhetoric”. He is due to talk to President Obama by telephone today. A source said: “He’s not going to be giving the President a dressing down.”  

But former trade minister Lord Jones said: “I would expect him to stand up more for a British company.”

FULL STORY IN THE DAILY EXPRESS 

BALLS, DAVE...... TRY GROWING A PAIR!
 

TIME TO BE A CONSERVATIVE, DAVE

This article by Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail makes depressing reading but, unfortunately, he says exactly what we are all thinking. I hope Cameron takes his advice.

An embattled Cameron needs to start telling Britain the truth

There was a palpable air of confidence at the Tory Party conference last autumn. Shadow cabinet ministers were pumped up with such high levels of optimism that they arrogantly thought the next General Election was already in the bag. However, the mood this weekend is completely different as delegates meet for their spring conference in Brighton. With just a few weeks to go to polling day, that previously healthy Tory lead has halved to around six per cent, not nearly enough to secure an outright victory. The misplaced triumphalism has gone - to be replaced by nervousness and even quiet desperation.

Embattled: David Cameron has never been liked by a hardcore of Conservative 

MPs, who see him as dismissive of what they feel are traditional Tory values

At the most senior levels, there are ill-tempered arguments about the party's strategy. In a deeply worrying sign, senior advisers have started to brief against one another. Meanwhile, there are increasingly bitter mutterings on the backbenches about David Cameron's leadership. It is worth remembering that Cameron has never been liked by a hard-core of Conservative MPs, who see him as cliquey, remote and dismissive of what they feel are traditional Tory values. Pragmatically, though, they have put up with him because they believed he was a winner. But now that they fear he might fail to lead them to the Promised Land of power, there is talk of plots against the Old Etonian.

Indeed, if the profoundly stupid and mediocre Right-wing Graham Brady (who was rightly sacked as a party spokesman on Europe by Cameron two years ago for disloyalty) wins the forthcoming election to be chairman of the influential 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, it will be a clear signal that Cameron's enemies are making serious headway. To make matters worse, the Tory leader's personal political machine has started to stall. There have been a series of minor, but telling, factual errors in press releases (like the crass mistake on teenage pregnancy statistics) as well as policy blunders (such as Cameron's muddle over tax breaks for married couples). Last month's poster campaign (featuring a picture of a tieless Cameron looking airbrushed) backfired badly. And for all of his brilliant successes as leader, Cameron has failed to define, in simple terms, exactly why ordinary voters should vote Tory.

Unclear: For all of his brilliant successes as leader, Cameron has failed 

to define, in simple terms, exactly why ordinary voters should vote Tory

Indeed, such is the confusion that some Labour strategists are urging Gordon Brown to exploit the Tories' weaknesses, dissolve Parliament over the next few days and call a snap election. They believe Brown could take advantage of Tory confusion and seize the initiative in what looks certain to be the most closely fought and unpredictable General Election campaign since John Major defied the odds to secure a 21-seat majority over Neil Kinnock in 1992.

So when he stands up to address his party conference tomorrow, Cameron has to set a new direction for the Conservative Party and resolve the battle over policy that has crippled his team's strategic thinking over the past few months. That means setting out some clearly defined reasons why people should vote Tory rather than Labour. If he fails to do this, the Conservative Party will continue to drift and risk electoral calamity.

Cameron's biggest problem is that with the General Election at most three months away, his party still lacks a coherent message on issues ranging from the economy and immigration to grammar schools. Of course, there are sound, and admirable, philosophical reasons why it is hard for Cameron to explain what he intends to do if he gets into No 10. For, unlike Labour, Tories are, at heart, sceptical about the ability of government to bring about huge social changes. 

In 1997, Tony Blair naively believed that he needed only to walk up Downing Street to the tune of Things Can Only Get Better for everything in Britain to improve almost overnight. Indeed, it was this fatuous belief that largely explains why - countless billions of wasted taxpayers' money later - he turned out such a failure in office. Conversely, Conservatives understand-that life is much more complicated-David Cameron realises that governments are very often not the solution to people's problems. In fact, they are often the cause of them. 

Even so, the Tories possess a radical and carefully thought-out programme of government, including plans to make schools and hospitals work better by forcing them to be far more responsive to parents' and patients' needs. Indeed, the draft legislation for education and health reform, which would be part of a Tory government's first Queen's Speech, has already been prepared. But the kind of reform planned would bring fundamental social changes, demanding a major revolution in cultural attitudes (such as a completely different mindset in the teaching profession, a radical restructuring of the Welfare State and a major review of public spending priorities). These can only be achieved over a very long period of time. So it is very hard for David Cameron to claim - as Tony Blair did so dishonestly in 1997 - that he can change Britain overnight. He knows he can't.

All smiles: PM Gordon Brown will be pleased that the previously 

healthy Tory lead over his party has been halved to six per cent

Above all, David Cameron's biggest problem is financial. Back in 1997, it was easy for Blair because the British economy was fundamentally very healthy. There was plenty of money sloshing about to pay for Labour plans for bigger government. Now, however, Cameron faces precisely the opposite problem. Government debt has doubled since Gordon Brown became Chancellor in 1997, and the public finances are in a catastrophic state. This means that whoever wins the election must impose the sharpest cuts in government spending since the aftermath of World War I. Cameron is therefore aware that if he is honest he must spell out the horrific truth and explain how much pain must be endured to try to put matters right. This is why David Cameron has no choice but to go on the attack this weekend. Until now he has been reluctant to do so, preferring to highlight his own vision rather than Labour's weaknesses. Cameron should therefore eviscerate Brown's appalling record as Chancellor. Indeed, he must remind voters that Brown and Blair inherited an almost flawless economy from the outgoing Conservatives. 

Buoyant: With the economy making a better than expected recovery 

from worst recession in 30 years the Labour party has been buoyed

Growth was rising, unemployment was falling, government debt was well under control. Yet Britain is now mired in an economic crisis, just as it was in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher saw off Jim Callaghan, or in 1951 when Sir Winston Churchill replaced Labour's Clement Attlee. Indeed, Cameron must point out the truth that every Labour government has left the country's unemployment rate higher than when it entered office. 

The Tory vision for government is darkly realistic, and - as David Cameron knows to his cost - will be a very tough pill for the electorate to swallow. But the Tory mission is simple: to rescue Britain from the economic mess that has been the hallmark of every Labour government. That is the message David Cameron must spell out, again and again, until polling closes on General Election day - because the idea of another five years of Brown in No 10 is unthinkable.

  

STORY FROM THE DAILY MAIL
  

WE ARE SOO IN THE SHIT!

Call me Dave cuts himself off in his prime

BY RICHARD LITTLEJOHN

Call me Dave painted himself into a corner over the Lisbon Treaty and has now had to walk out over the paint. It was the first real test of his leadership as a potential Prime Minister and he flunked it.

Yes, I know all the arguments against holding a referendum on a treaty which is already in force. And there are, admittedly, more pressing problems at home over jobs and the economy.

Yet while the Lisbon sell-out isn't top of anyone's concerns in the real world right now, there is still an underlying sense of betrayal.If Dave is serious about renegotiating Britain's relationship with Europe, his hand would have been immeasurably strengthened by a massive popular rejection of 'ever closer union'.

His calculated refusal smacks of weakness and plays into the widespread 'they're all as bad as each other' disgust with politicians.

Submerging Britain into a quasi-socialist federal Europe was always the real aim of the New Labour 'project'.

It figured that if this country was really ruled from Brussels, it wouldn't matter who formed the puppet government at Westminster.

We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the real villain of the piece is Gordon Brown, the lying, moral coward who has brought shame and disgrace upon his great office and richly deserves to suffer a humiliating wipe-out at the next election.

But Lisbon has already 'castrated' Cameron, to use that crowing French minister's charming phrase, rendering impotent any prospect of democratic Conservative self-government.

If it isn't overturned by a British referendum, this country won't be worth governing and the New Labour traitors will have won.

READ MORE AT THE DAILY MAIL

This was the point where I was going to have a damned good rant but this next article says everything I wanted to say and more, so I'm going to have a badly needed early night at about 3.50am. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow or Saturday- Spidey.

Concessions? How can Cameron possibly win any at all 

BY EDWARD HEATHCOAT AMORY

Having worked in Government as a special adviser through the Major years, the staunchly Eurosceptic David Cameron is determined on one thing; that any government that he leads should not be torn apart by constant arguments about Europe. That's why he has decided against promising any kind of referendum on our relationship with the EU. He doesn't want Brussels to dominate his first term.

But there is a danger that the programme that he is promising will lead to very outcome that he so desperately wants to avoid.

He is proposing to argue within the EU for the repatriation of powers to Britain, and in particular for a formal opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for a guarantee that would prevent the EU interfering in our criminal justice system, and for regaining control over large chunks of social and employment law that are now decided in Brussels.

Now these are all very laudable aims, but it's hard to see how we can persuade our European partners to grant them. In fact, in the first two areas, Labour tried really quite hard to obtain just these guarantees as part of the Lisbon Treaty negotiations. They failed, despite having the option of not ratifying the treaty. Why should other member states concede them to a future Tory government that won't have any such negotiating lever?

The other EU nations will be aware that to give Britain what Mr Cameron says he wants, there would have be a formal amendment to the Lisbon Treaty - effectively changing the EU constitution. It's hard to see how this would be possible without reopening the entire treaty negotiation process, and after the trouble they have had getting Lisbon through, there isn't the slightest chance of anyone in Brussels agreeing to that.

The best that Mr Cameron can hope for is a series of informal guarantees, of the kind that we already have concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights. But they would only have a limited value, because the Constitutional Treaty - of which the charter is a part - overrides all other EU agreements. So we won't get what we want, but what we may get are a series of rows, in Brussels and in Westminster.

Apparently the Tory plan is to argue for each of these changes on a piecemeal basis over the course of a Parliament. On each occasion there will be a fuss in Europe where we will be isolated. In order to obtain even modest concessions we will have to make sacrifices of our own interests in other areas.

And then ministers will return to Westminster where they will be taunted over their failure to stand up for Britain. Of course, we do have some negotiating clout. We can threaten to veto the budget - just about the only key area where Lisbon and its predecessors have not abolished our right to say no. (so far!) But this is a risky option and we surely can't use it more than once.

So it might have been better to assemble a comprehensive package of reforms, promising that when they were agreed by Brussels they would be put to the British people in a referendum. We could then have gone to the EU and demanded that they agree to the package or else we would stop the financial traffic in Brussels.

There would of course have been a huge row, but it would have been time limited and at the end of it we could have put our relationship with the EU on a healthy basis. Instead Britain now faces the prospect of a series of running arguments over the EU throughout the next Parliament.

FROM THE DAILY MAIL