Barack Obama's 'anti-British' rhetoric

U.S. President meets families of workers killed in rig blast

Boris Johnson: BP is paying 'very heavy price' for an accident

UK pension funds hit as shares plunge 11% before rallying

Obama warns oil giant not to pay shareholder dividend

Anger at President's use of firm's old name - British Petroleum

Warning BP could be forced to compensate other oil firms

David Cameron has bowed to pressure to intervene in the growing row over the BP oil spill crisis and will talk to Barack Obama this weekend, Downing Street said today.

The Prime Minister, who is currently in Kabul, has been under increasing pressure to defend the British-based multinational after a series of outspoken attacks by the U.S. President.

Boris Johnson raised the stakes today by accusing Mr Obama of 'buck-passing' and 'beating up' the oil giant which he insisted was paying a 'very, very, heavy price' for what had been an accident.

Lord Tebbit, a former trade and industry secretary, also suggested Mr Obama was attacking the company to distract from his own administration's impotence in the face of the disaster.

As shares slumped again this morning, experts claimed the U.S. President has 'his boot on the throat' of British pensioners because BP is such a major contributor to UK pension schemes.

Mr Johnson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I do think there's something slightly worrying about the anti-British rhetoric that seems to be permeating from America. I would like to see a bit of cool heads rather than endlessly buck-passing and name-calling.

'When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves. It was an accident that took place and BP is paying a very, very heavy price indeed.'

Writing on his website, Lord Tebbit said Mr Obama’s attitude was explicable but ‘despicable’.

‘The whole might of American wealth and technology is displayed as utterly unable to deal with the disastrous spill - so what more natural than a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political Presidential petulance against a multinational company?,' he said.

Lord Tebbit pointed out that U.S. engineering giant Halliburton was also involved in the events leading up to the Gulf disaster.

And he added: 'It is time that our American were reminded that they sang a different tune when the American company Union Carbide killed many thousands of Indians at Bhopal. Not to mention when the American company Occidental killed 167 people on a North Sea oil rig in 1988.

'At the very least, the President might acknowledge that the company directly responsible for the Gulf disaster was American, not British. He may be holding on to some Democratic Party votes, but he is storing up a great deal of ill will that he might regret at some time.'

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I can tell you that Obama is creating a lot of anger and anti - American sentiment over here because of his Brit bashing over what was after all an accident when Americans and not BP were operating and managing the oil rig.