Sentences with phrase «as a political football»

The statement concluded that «our children's education should not be used as a political football and we want democratic accountability to be returned to our communities».

It's time to stop using education as a political football.

The tax system is actually too important to be used as a political football.

«It is disgusting that international students continue to be used as a political football by politicians who seem either incapable of understanding, or are simply uncaring about the impact of their decisions on individuals, universities and the UK economy,» the National Union of Students» president Liam Burns said.

We have learned to export our wars to third - world countries where they are more out of sight and mind — except when convenient to serve as political footballs for the parties out of power to punt to those in charge.

«The big problem is this started as a political football when our 4 percent raise was denied us and then (longer school days) was kind of crammed down our throats,» said Lewis after the meetings.

He's going to use NY as a political football, doing cosmetic changes to show he's a tough fiscal manager while being careful not to offend the unions too much, make - nice with the environmentalists, and generally use the Pataki game plan for setting the national stage.

The challenges of geography and a false sense of superiority based on an exclusive (i.e. white) identity have been consolidated by the use of immigration as a political football.

John Healey has cynically used these three authorities as a political football trying to divert attention away from the Government's mismanagement of this crisis.

For someone who claims to have spent much of the last decade working to alleviate poverty, Iain Duncan Smith should know better than to use the most disadvantaged as a political football.

The fact that he is both Jewish and a lifelong activist on what used to be called the hard left puts him in an interesting place when it comes to suggestions of rising antisemitism in the reinvented Labour party: in a recent piece for the Jewish Chronicle, he warned against «allowing the trivialisation of antisemitism through its opportunistic misuse as a political football».

He was one of the first candidates — as far as I can recall, anyway — to seize on the project as a political football... little did we know how far this would go.

Washington (CNN)- February 17th marks the two year anniversary of the stimulus package as well as the two year anniversary of politicians and political organizations using the measure as a political football.

He says Cameron «should stop using the health service as a political football and allow GPs to get on with the job of improving health services».

It angers me — and my 600,000 members — that we have in Governor Cuomo someone who is sticking his nose into education policy — about which he knows nothing — in order to use our public schools as a political football.

In July, the House of Commons» Education Committee could rue Tony Blair's pledge no longer and showed his and successive governments a red card for kicking school sport around as a political football and ditching the opportunities thay would ensure that the pledge could be fulfilled.

During this year's legislative session lawmakers used teacher assistants as political footballs, lobbing them back and forth as either a group deserving of losing their jobs — Senate budget writers proposed ridding the state of half of its TAs to pay for teacher raises — or, as the House and Governor Pat McCrory preferred, saving them from the chopping block.

The department has been used for decades as a political football to be influenced by lobbyists with large amounts of money, that «buy» influence from whatever politicians are in power, the PRESENT administration is no different.

Infrastructure as a political football is symptomatic of competing visions for the nation's energy — a divergence that makes energy policy a key issue for U.S. voters this year.

When Congress used the PTC as a political football and allowed it to lapse in 1999, the wind industry's installed capacity fell 93 percent the following year; when it did so again in 2001, the drop was 73 percent.

The result of the foregoing does not excuse the findings of the Auditor General but do point out the damage that has been done to this publically owned institution that delivers relatively cheap power but has been used as a political football by successive Liberal energy ministers.

The government made it abundantly clear that they were more than happy for those on low incomes to be used as political footballs, in order to achieve nothing less than petty, childish point - scoring.

Dr Babu has called for a strong independent health watchdog in Wales along with cross party commissioning to stop the Welsh NHS being used as a political football.

He said: «Over the last six months, I've been appalled by the way some in government decided to use this as a political football, a pawn in their culture wars, and a chance to attack our city's proud Muslim community.

One has to feel a twinge of sorrow for the judge who has ended up as a political football, and who is destined to be a footnote like Clement Haynsworth or G. Harrold Carswell.

For too long, Indigenous peoples have been used as a political football.