getting enthusiastic about a hot topic

Hi,
Is there an idiom that means that the public are debating and arguing with enthusiasm over a hot topic?
Thank you in advance

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Originally Posted by borhane

Hi,
Is there an idiom that means that the public are debating and arguing with enthusiasm over a hot topic?
Thank you in advance

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If it's something not serious, you can say, "It has caught the public's imagination". You could say that about a movie star's antics, or UFO reports, or the discovery of a missing link fossil, etc. but not for something seriously political or social.

Unfortunately I need it in a political context.

Well there is such an idiom, but unfortunately it's not really English. We have borrowed it from the French. But here in Canada, at least, it is commonly used:
Cause célèbre

I suspect it is not much used in the rest of the English speaking world. If using it in English, I would of course omit the accents.

If something is a hot topic, people are debating/discussing it- hot topic is enough IMO.

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Originally Posted by probus

Well there is such an idiom, but unfortunately it's not really English. We have borrowed it from the French. But here in Canada, at least, it is commonly used:
Cause célèbre

I suspect it is not much used in the rest of the English speaking world. If using it in English, I would of course omit the accents.

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Good phrase but not restricted to politics. Could be anything.

Not teacher

Well, there's a political football, meaning a hot topic that's being passed around.
The buzz in Washington is...

The CNN page is called 'Political Hot Topics.'

Hot button issue

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Heavily politicized issues are often called "hot button issues" because almost any position taken is sure to please one group of people and offend another.

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