Hail Mary

Many of us are, no doubt, aware of the Hail Mary as a devotional prayer, derived from the Biblical greeting given by the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary. Australians may be less familiar with the transferred use in the sports jargon of American English for a desperate strategy, only undertaken in circumstances where you might as well have a go because this is your last chance.  In American Football it is a long forward throw, made when there is very little time and no other option. It is called a Hail Mary because the chance of success is so slight that a prayer to help it on its way is a good idea. In basketball it is a shot made a long way away from the basket, again in desperation. 

 However, we are catching up with the figurative use in financial jargon where it has come to mean any desperate tactic that would normally not be considered because it has little hope of success. The head of the World Bank was described as falling back on a Hail-Mary strategy to achieve some success before his departure. Huawei was described as coming up with a Hail-Mary plan to keep the company afloat as the trade wars developed between the U.S. and China.

 The step from sporting jargon to polliespeak is a small one these days, so it comes as now surprise to find that Hail Mary has been liberated from the finance pages and can be used more generally for any desperate strategy.