Poor Tony

Image by Getty Images Europe via @daylife

Tony Hayward is having a sad day.

You see, BP had to let their CEO go. Even the mutli-million dollar parachute his now-former employer slipped him at the door can’t assuage the pain of getting his life back. But Tony is trying his best to keep a stiff upper lip, in the best British tradition.

Whether his sacking is fair or unfair “is not the point,” he gamely told reporters today, before adding the purely philosophical observation that “life isn’t fair.”

Eschewing the kabuki ritual of publicly taking responsibility for what happened on his watch, Tony cowboyed-up (in his own way) and gave a bluntly honest assessment of what had transpired since that day in April when the Deepwater Horizon well exploded, killing eleven workers, flooding the Gulf of Mexico with a torrent of crude oil and nearly spoiling what had looked to be a promising yachting season.

“Sometimes,” Tony confessed, speaking of his own personal loss in being forced out, “you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus.”

And so, Tony Hayward exits the American stage as he entered it some 99 long days ago: an oily disaster.

Poor Tony. We knew thee well enough.

Mr Hayward, who will make way in October for US citizen and fellow board member Bob Dudley, told reporters he had no major regrets about his leadership of the group since 2007 and that his decision to leave was a purely practical one.

He said: “This is a very sad day for me personally. Whether it is fair or unfair is not the point. I became the public face (of the disaster) and was demonised and vilified. BP cannot move on in the US with me as its leader…”

via BP chief ‘demonised and vilified’ – Mid Sussex Today.