BP chief executive Tony Hayward has had to step down because people in the US were upset by some tactless remarks he made while leading the attempts to stop the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Oil was gushing out of the wellhead one mile below the surface and “killing” the leak has proved to be very difficult.

Some American politicians thought it would be dealt with quickly if only the “ineffectual”

Brits would give way to a bunch of “redneck” American action men. This is the mindset of many people in the US who have seen movies featuring the impossible heroics of Superman and other fictitious superheroes.

The politicians asked the army to move in and fix the leak, but the invitation was turned down.

They wouldn’t have known what to do.

The truth is that Mr Hayward and his colleagues, most of them experienced American drilling engineers, were doing a good job, but he had to go because the politicians wanted a whipping boy to be seen to suffer.

President Barack Obama even said he wanted to “kick ass”.

Sophisticated thinking in the US is sometimes in short supply.

Jim Allan, Hartlepool.