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On one side stands Barack Obama throwing insults at him, on the other BP shareholders

No one would deny that Tony Hayward is at least partly to blame for his status as "the most hated and most clueless man in America", as the New York Daily News has styled him. That "I want my life back" comment, thrown out in response to questions about the impact of the oil spill, will haunt him to his grave.

And no one would envy him the position he finds himself in now, stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one side stands Barack Obama throwing insults at him, on the other BP shareholders demanding to know how the company's chief executive plans to reverse a catastrophic $50bn (£34bn) slump in the value of their investments.

Being dubbed public enemy No 1 in America is a curious place for a bright, affable and experienced British geologist to find himself. It must also be a long way from the vision the youthful-looking 53-year-old conjured up for himself when he gave up being BP's head of exploration to take the top job from John Browne just over three years ago.

Long considered the favourite to succeed Browne, Hayward, promised a "back to basics" agenda away from the "beyond petroleum" razzmatazz associated with his former boss. While Browne was associated with green agendas, mega-mergers and celebrity friends, Hayward said he wanted efficiency, technical excellence and concentration on safety. He promised he would focus "like a laser" on safe and reliable operations.

Hayward said he wanted a low profile for himself and a different one for the company. In particular he wanted to eradicate the perception that BP had become so entrepreneurial that it had developed a culture of risk-taking that critics said separated it from rivals Shell or ExxonMobil.

The company's image, especially in the US, had been damaged by the Texas City fire in 2005 and Alaskan pipeline fractures the following year, so the new boss's priorities seemed the right ones.

But while Hayward certainly demanded changes, there were signs that some things did not change. For example, damaging evidence emerged recently that BP had opposed attempts by regulators to toughen the safety regime in the Gulf.

"We believe industry's current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs implemented since the adoption of [voluntary standards] have been and continue to be very successful," it argued in one submission last year.

Hayward's problem is the Gulf spill has quickly eaten away what goodwill he had been able to claw back since taking charge.

While his mentor had to run the gauntlet of angry senators following the Texas City refinery fire and explosion, it was relatively benign compared to the current verbal assault on Hayward and his company.

"He wouldn't be working for me," said Obama earlier this week, while Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner told TV viewers that BP was essentially lying about the disaster: "Whenever you hear someone with a British accent talking about this on behalf of British Petroleum they are not telling you the truth. That's the bottom-line," Weiner said.

Edward Markey, chairman of the house energy and environment subcommittee, claimed that BP was "either lying or they are grossly incompetent" when it came to the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon.

Meanwhile the BP boss has provided the press with a series of unfortunate comments. Even at the very beginning of the Gulf drama, the oil man started on the wrong foot.

In an interview with the BBC, Hayward seemed keen to pin the blame for the accident on Transocean, the US owner of the stricken rig, saying: "This was not our accident … This was not our drilling rig ... This was Transocean's rig. Their systems. Their people. Their equipment."

Hayward, who studied geology at Aston and later Edinburgh universities, has apologised for many of his gaffes and a meeting with financial analysts last week brought a measure of support for him from the City community. But whether he can keep his job remains uncertain.

Paddy Power has now cut the odds of Hayward quitting this year to 1/2, from 5/6 on Tuesday, and said it has taken 250 wagers on him departing, compared with just 10 on him lasting until 2011. "You know your luck is definitely out when the president of the US reckons you should be fired," it said.

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