THE TELEGRAPH: Nick Clegg today warned that the BP disaster threatened to descend into “megaphone diplomacy” following Barack Obama’s fierce criticism of the British company.
In a thinly veiled attack on the US President – who earlier this week said he was looking for “some ass to kick over the disaster” – the Deputy Prime Minister argued that a “tit for tat” attitude was not helpful.
But Mr Clegg stopped short of voicing support for the British company, which has seen billions of pounds wiped off its share value since the leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I’m not going to start intervening in a debate which clearly risks descending into megaphone diplomacy,” Mr Clegg told an audience at the Nueva Economic Forum in Madrid on Friday morning.
“I think everyone is united on both sides of Atlantic obviously, quite rightly, and understandably within US administration and I’m sure within BP itself, to deal with this problem. It is an ecological catastrophe – It does need to be dealt with."
Nick Clegg made the comments when asked for his response to President Obama's call for the sacking of BP chief executive Tony Hayward. >>> Fiona Govan in Madrid | Friday, June 11, 2010
