BP’s $17bn loss, amid the Gulf of Mexico clean-up, was trumpeted as “the biggest quarterly loss ever announced by a British company.” That’s not a hard record to dispute: few companies could lose so much and remain solvent, but even fewer report their results four times a year. BP had the field to itself.

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Choosing chief executives from a pool of internal candidates with decades of experience at the company may look like good succession planning but BP Plc (LON:BP) has proved yet again that it does not always work. Tony Hayward is the oil company’s third chief executive to tick all those boxes but who has been forced out.
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BP Plc (LON:BP) is a big business though not as big as the American economy.
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Should BP Plc (LON:BP) suspend its dividend payments because of the oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico? The company does not need to save cash, but it does need to save its reputation and making shareholders seem to suffer might just help.
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Have we made chairing a company so hard that seats cannot be filled? There are vacancies in the centre of more than half a dozen big boardrooms but the headhunters don’t have that many names on their lists.
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At last there is an official inquiry into how the banking crisis happened – but not into punishing those responsible or compensating those that suffered. It is something the government should consider in this year’s budget or next year’s general election.
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The idea of former Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Tom McKillop
seeking re-election as a director of BP reminds me of the joke about the drunken magistrates.
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