IT'S NOT AS IF HE LIKES ANY OF OUR ALLIES ANY BETTER:

Barack Obama's anti-British prejudice helps neither BP nor an alliance that has served the world well for 100 years (Stephen Glover, 3rd June 2010, Daily Mail)

[I]t is difficult to imagine that the President would have been so remorselessly vituperative had BP been an American oil company such as the even bigger ExxonMobil.

These are different times, of course, but when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker sank off Alaska in 1989, its American owners, Exxon, were not treated like criminals by the U.S. government.

Equally, when the north sea oil rig Piper Alpha exploded in 1988 at the cost of 167 lives, the then Prime Minister, Margaret thatcher, did not inveigh against its American owners.

The President's public evisceration of BP cannot merely be explained by his feelings of impotence or his political predicament. There is an additional factor. BP, after all, stands for British Petroleum.

I don't wish to sound paranoid, but it is pretty clear that Mr Obama does not much like anything that is British. There is an anti-British undertow throughout his book dreams From My Father, with slighting references to the country and its citizens.

Most significantly, he reveals - or perhaps I should say 'alleges', since no evidence is produced - that his Kenyan grandfather was tortured by the British authorities during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the Fifties.

I imagine that if my grandfather had been tortured by, say, the Venezuelans, I might nurse a lingering prejudice against their country, and I do not particularly blame Mr Obama for bearing his grievance. What is undeniable, though, is that it has helped to shape his feelings about Britain.

Unlike his immediate predecessors - Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush - he displays no affection for, or interest in, this country and its history.

When he entered the Oval office, he immediately returned a bust of Winston Churchill that had been loaned to George W. Bush by the British government.

Mr Obama's administration has been notably cool towards Britain. For example, during the recent stand-off between Britain and Argentina over oil rights around the Falkland islands, the U.S. was at best neutral, at worst pro-Argentine, whereas during the Falklands War it had been strongly supportive of this country.