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Corporate and Political Hypocrisy |
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22 June 2010 |
Justin Urquhart Stewart is one of the most recognisable and trusted market commentators in the media. Originally trained as a lawyer, he has observed the retail market industry for 20 years whilst at Barclays Stockbrokers and developed a unique understanding of the market's roles and benefits for the private investor.
Justin Urquhart Stewart is one of the most recognisable and trusted market commentators in the media. Originally trained as a lawyer, he has observed the retail market industry for 20 years whilst at Barclays Stockbrokers and developed a unique understanding of the market's roles and benefits for the private investor. Justin provides financial advice to clients of Kester Cunningham John Financial Planning LLP.
What started as a corporate mess has quickly become a political quagmire for BP. The result has been not just a financial disaster but a reputational one as well. It is too early to be able to write the history of this disaster with the suitable amount of perspective, after all there is still going to be much to unfold over the coming months.
However, what we can see have been actions and reactions of a major corporate struggling to manage such a series of events in the glare of twenty four hour global media all hungry for comments, errors and slip ups. Mr Hayward has been criticised for some ill advised comments but frankly anything can be taken out of context and twisted to imply whatever the media outlet wants it to be. This I know from my own experience.
The problem for BP has not necessarily been the amount of their action or inaction, but their inability to finally 'cap' the problem in every sense. Thus as the tragedy continues the issue metamorphoses from a corporate and environmental issue into a political one. BP has clearly stated and repeated its determination to stand by its promises of repair and rectification and that there will be no going back on this.
The comments therefore that not enough has been done seems astonishing when you see what actually is being done and with no obvious alternatives being suggested. It is not as if there is anyone else that has either the technical ability or experience in the US government to add to the engineering oil expertise already being applied. You can't send in the marines here to solve the problem |
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