hot air

"You'll never get anywhere so long as youse trail with that reform bunch. It's all hot air and tomfool theory."

1913, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 8, in The Vision Splendid

"You give me a lot of hot air about your conscience. Why don't you get a soap-box and preach on the street-corners?"

1921, Alice Hegan Rice, chapter 28, in Quin

Klein diagnoses impressively what hasn’t worked. No more claptrap about fracked gas as a bridge to renewables. Enough already of the international summit meetings that produce sirocco-quality hot air, and nonbinding agreements that bind us all to more emissions.

2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times

I'm afraid I must disagree with Sir Michael Holden, for whom I have enormous respect, when he wrote in RAIL 977 that Transport Secretary Mark Harper's keynote speech for the George Bradshaw lecture in February was "a breath of fresh air". More like hot air to me, given Harper's emphasis on the private sector through both a kind of renewed franchising model and open access.

2023 March 8, Christian Wolmar, “Labour passes up the chance to deliver a forceful rail policy”, in RAIL, number 978, page 34