cut-and-thrust

• “The truth is that ministers who came to office with no experience of the cut-and-thrust of policy find themselves at the mercy of shrewder heads.”

  The Guardian: The maths of coalition has opened the door to lobbyists | Simon Jenkins

• “It's more of a slimmed down cut-and-thrust sword, Mikken's idea of what a bravo's sword would look like.”

  Stick 'Em With the Pointy End

• “Gingrich's debating skills owe much to the political cut-and-thrust from his Congress days.”

  The Guardian: Romney and Gingrich aim to find ways to wound in South Carolina duel

• “Points of order were okay, proper argument was okay: natural instinct and a near-primal taste for the cut-and-thrust took over, and she really quite enjoyed it.”

  Fictionaut: It's October, 1956.

• “Except, in the cut-and-thrust of politics, one might describe it as public office without public service.”

  Cedric Perrier: Sarah Palin: What the British Might Think...

• “Funny the Way It Is" is a busy, catchy bundle of tension and release, with Tinsley's violin slicing across the band's cut-and-thrust and a grunting riff in the bridge that gets under your skin like another chorus.”

  Rolling Stone: 4 stars for new DMB album

• “It is hard to see how you can transpose the American cut-and-thrust restructuring model in continental Europe with its complex politico-industrial-socioeconomic systems, especially in an election year in France.”

  Sound Politics: Boeing Soars, Most Employees Gain

• “For better or worse, that means much of the time the driver is fighting extra throttle resistance in suburban cut-and-thrust driving.”

  Consumer Reports: 2009 Infiniti FX35: Lessons from a car that drives itself

• “It is common, especially in recent months, to hear people asserting that the Dalai Lama is a wise and even heroic spiritual leader who is nonetheless a little out of his depth in the cut-and-thrust of realpolitik, which observes rules and priorities very different from the monastic ones.”

  'A Hell on Earth'

• “His dress was not different from what he then wore, excepting that he had a loose riding-coat of camlet, under which he carried an efficient cut-and-thrust sword, instead of his walking rapier, and also a pair of pistols.”

  Redgauntlet

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