STILL MAU-MAUING:

Obama's British Bias: The U.S. president seems displeased with Britain lately, and the recent BP disaster isn't helping matters.
(Quentin Letts, 06.09.10, Forbes)

There is not much nationalism in Britain about BP--or at least there wasn't until Barack Obama started chucking his weight around like some bar-brawl drunk, accentuating the Britishness of the (actually multinational) oil company and ranting about its chief executive, Tony Hayward.

Once again this president has left the impression that he dislikes us Brits. Forgive us if, increasingly, we wonder if it is time to reciprocate that ill-feeling. [...]

What's your problem, Mr. President? Still sore about perceived slights by the British colonialist against your East African forebears? Or is it the knowledge that the British are one of the few ethnic groups who have not bothered to establish a shrill grievance lobby in Washington D.C.?

We have been here before. There was that time the White House forgot to invite our Queen to some D-Day commemorations, even though she was the one head of state actually to have done some service during the Second World War (OK, it did not amount to much more than changing a few spark plugs on Bedford lorries, but at least she wore a trim uniform). There was the dumping of the statue of Sir Winston Churchill that used to adorn the Oval Office. There was the decision, at a U.N. meeting, to meet former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in, er, a kitchen. Lawyers tend to speak of a pattern of behavior. One does not have to be paranoid to detect that Obama's attitude to the British has been less than loving.