The Dead Zone (or, BP and the Oil Well That Keeps on Giving)

[Myrddraal]

Perhaps because Afghanistan, Middle East peace prospects and the global economy are important issues which face our national government, but critically sticky and difficult subjects with no easy answers, whereas BP is a nice easy target which doesn't have very much to do with the UK government (if anything).

If the senators want to score political points, they could do well to score them against each other. No individual senator will benefit greatly from a race to see who can criticise BP, or the British government, but it does have a nasty diplomatic effect.