Newspaper editorial (1)

[HaraKiriBlade]

I really want to post the entire article here but judging from the previous experience the longer the post the less reply I get. What I'll do is I'll just spread my questions to a number of posts.

Here it goes:

Belinda Stronach and Paul Martin are made for each other.

Both are hypocrites.

Both have revealed themselves to be -- for all their idealistic blathering -- just two more grubby politicians prepared to do anything for the sake of power.

Neither would know a principled position if it hit them in the face.

To give you a little bit of background info, Paul Martin is the prime minister of Canada, and the head of the corrupt Liberal party. Belinda had been in the opposition party before she was bought out and crossed the floor to join the Liberals yesterday.

What would the boldened part mean?

[Tdol]

It's just an expression we use to emphasise how little they no about something. You'd know something if it hit you in the face, or should, but these charmers are such hypocrites that if a principle hit them in the face, like a clown's cake, they wouldn't know it for what it was. It just serves to suggest that they are especially low forms of life. I don't know much about Canadian politics, but this is a decidedly spicy and no-holds-barred editorial. The paper is clearly challenging them.

[HaraKiriBlade]

Thank you very much Tdol! Now another question...

but this is a decidedly spicy and no-holds-barred editorial.

no-holds-barred = holding back nothing?
'barred' seem to suggest jail bars, used in sentences like "he should rot behind bars." It's just that 'holds' part confuses me. What does it really mean, and where have the phrase come from?

[Tdol]

If a fights is 'no hold barred', then you can do anything to the opponent- in wrestling a 'hold' is a set-move against an opponent, so we use it when there are no rules of combat.