Matters were made worse by the coincidence of this apparent volte face with several others.

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He gives much of the credit for this volte face to Ms Claussen.

ECONOMIST: Changing the climate of opinion

It alleges that the Libyan authorities "performed a dramatic volte face" when faced with a deadline for surrendering Mr Gaddafi to the ICC and said they wanted to investigate him for war crimes.

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So the transport minister was forced to perform a humiliating volte face and go back to the drawing board - at a cost for the taxpayer which may well run to hundreds of millions of pounds.

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The signals coming from the preparatory talks, however, suggest it'll be a wiggle rather than a volte-face.

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And it is almost certain that the government will do a volte-face on this.

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To be sure, the Bush team will win plaudits domestically for its volte-face on dealing with Iran.

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But the questions raised by Mr Kay's volte-face may only go away if an independent inquiry is set up to answer them.

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But this year, the British oil company did a volte-face.

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The climate sceptic columnist Christopher Booker applauded her volte-face, arguing that previously she had been "under the spell" of her adviser the former UN ambassador Sir Crispin Tickell.

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The volte-face was most striking among European investors.

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So Turkey did another volte-face.

ECONOMIST: Turkish foreign policy