give a handle

The move is "likely to give a handle to the opposition, given his promise that he would live in a flat like a common man", the report says.

No doubt your arrival would give a handle for the gossips, and I might suffer by it.

It is amusing, however, to find how even such a trifle as a choice of figures in a quadrille can help to mark caste, and give a handle for supercilious sneers.

This rebellion added another difficulty to those which were overwhelming the King and Queen; for not only did it thus give a handle to their enemies, but there were those who did not scruple to insinuate that the Queen was concerned in it.

Thus, the old dame of Malvern, divining aright, our Challis may ask, or hint—"Please your Royal Highness, give a handle to my challice".