Pictures of Tony Hayward yachting at the Isle of Wight billed as a PR nightmare and insulting to those affected by oil slick Images of the beleaguered BP chief executive, Tony Hayward, attending a yacht race on the Isle of Wight, just 48 hours after a hostile interrogation by a US congressional commitee on the Gulf Coast oil spill, have provoked sharp criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, condemned Hayward’s attendance at the event as “part of a long line of PR gaffes and mistakes” on ABC television, adding: “I think that we can all conclude that Tony Hayward is not going to have a second career in PR consulting”. A YouGov poll on the special relationship between Britain and the US, carried out in both countries, showed most believe criticism by Obama, including his careful dubbing of the company British Petroleum rather than BP, is doing damage. In Britain, 64% of respondents, and 47% in the US, believed the president’s handling of the crisis was harming relations and 22% in both Britain and the US thought Obama was anti-British. In Britain, only 54% said they now viewed the US favourably, compared with 68% before the spill – dramatically fewer than the 77% of Americans who felt favourably towards Britain. On both sides of the Atlantic, almost identical numbers blamed BP for the spill, 59% in Britain and 58% in the US, but in the US, 57% believed BP had cut corners to save costs, compared with 26% in Britain.
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BP chief’s weekend sailing trip stokes anger at oil company
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