kick into the long grass

An analogy of kicking a football off the playing field so that it is out of play.

• "Never can a kick into the long grass have been more clearly signalled."
• "But I could find nothing in the parliamentary record of the committee reporting back to the House and assume that, as now, referral to committee meant a kick into the long grass."
• "After gaining power, veteran political observers expected to see Labour give most of these proposals a "kick into the long grass”: endless rounds of study, committee hearings, expert counsel, etc."
• "It was an overoptimistic timetable — and rather a disingenous one, given that Macmillan would give the subjet a couple more kicks into the long grass when it came up again in 1960 ('opinion in the Cabinet was so equally balanced that it would be preferable to defer a decision') and 1963 ('arrange for further consideration to be given to the implications of the proposal')."

• kick the can down the road
• ostrich politics