Sobotka caught between two billionaires
Was that a quaver in Bohuslav Sobotka's voice late last night as he announced a postponement until Aug. 20 in the government's vote on highway tolls? It would be understandable if Sobotka had a lump in his throat, because he's caught between Scylla and Charybdis, between Andrej Babiš and Petr Kellner. The former refuses to give up one of his most reliable ministers over the toll issue, whereas the latter damn well wants what he's paying for. As we indicated earlier this week, Sobotka needs the extra few weeks to figure out how to counter Transport Minister Dan Ťok's objections to discarding a perfectly good toll system so that Kellner's SkyToll can be paid billions more to put up a new one. Now that the cat is out of the bag about what is truly going on, the likelihood increases that the two billionaires will quit going through their errand boys and sit down to work out a deal that satisfies everyone, except of course taxpayers.
Glossary of difficult words
quaver - (of a person's voice) a shake or tremble in speaking, typically through nervousness or emotion;to have a lump in the throat - to have a feeling of tightness or dryness in the throat caused by strong emotion;
between Scylla and Charybdis - used to refer to a situation involving two dangers in which an attempt to avoid one increases the risk from the other;
to discard - to get rid of (something or someone) as no longer being useful or desirable;
the cat is out of the bag - the secret has been made known;
errand boy - a person who delivers a message; a boy employed in a shop to make deliveries and to run other errands.