Usually, Cabinet meetings are cordial affairs in which there is cross-party agreement on deficit-cutting and welfare reform.
Most "defenses" are cordial affairs, not debates, though you should expect to be pressed and argued with regarding your methods, your conclusions, and other aspects of your work.
Otherwise cordial allies in world affairs, they have been plunging ever deeper into an angry row over European import restrictions on bananas.
He evidently did, and would have, except that Paul Moore, Virgin's cordial director for corporate affairs, shot him a stricken look from down the table.
While the tone of Thursday evening's mayoral debate hosted by the San Francisco Young Democrats at the African American Art & Culture Complex was considerably more cordial than Monday's air horn-filled affair, the same topic loomed over everythingMayor Ed Lee's decision to run for a full term.
The BBC was once New Labour's friend, not because of any sinister conspiracy, but because the people who work in its news and current-affairs departments mostly share a soft-left world-view: instinctive statism, cordial anti-capitalism, and bien-pensant liberal internationalism.
On the world stage, Lula and Erdoğan shared a cordial personal rapport and like-minded visions for their countries' growing prominence in world affairs.
In foreign affairs Bush continued the key policies of the Reagan administration, especially by retaining cordial relations with the Soviet Union and its successor states.
Throughout the last two decades, Ford and the U.A.W. enjoyed an exceedingly cordial relationship, reaching innovative contracts that granted union members job security, and a voice in company affairs, in return for concessions meant to make the company more flexible.
