The CD was leaning against the side of the right-hand shelf unit, so to get a firm grip with a fingertip, he was going to have to use his left hand. It went against every instinct he had about getting greasy fingermarks on CDs, a personal bête noire, but on this occasion he was just going to have to put up with it.

The government knows that the liberal broadsheet press is shot through with anti-Putin, borderline Russophobic prejudice. Indeed, many commentators still blame Russia for Brexit. And so, at its lowest ebb, Johnson’s wretched government has decided to play to the gallery, and generate some plastic animosity towards the bête noire of the liberal elite.

Bête noire

Meaning

Noun