Alliances

The “fifth column” is a treasonous group who secretly undermine a nation from within.

The term was coined by the Nationalist General Emilio Mola Vidal during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). As four of his army columns moved on Madrid, …

Two politicians are “strange bedfellows” if they have made an unusual political alliance.

The term comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest when a storm causes Trinculo to seek shelter under a sheet with Caliban, whom he regards as an enemy. “There …