pull strings

• pull the strings

Suggesting a puppet show, where characters are moved by pulling attached strings.

pull strings (third-person singular simple present pulls strings, present participle pulling strings, simple past and past participle pulled strings)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To manipulate a situation, especially by asking favours of others; to use one's influence with others to attain a desired goal.

   He has the job not because of talent, but because his dad pulled strings with the boss.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic, often with “the” or a possessive adjective (such as “his”) before “strings”, pull one's strings) To control a person, organization, or situation by operating behind the scenes, as a puppeteer controls a marionette.
   • 1986, Metallica (music), “Master of Puppets”, in Master of Puppets:

     Master of Puppets, I'm pulling your strings

   • 1992, Richard Berke, "The 1992 Campaign: Political Memo," New York Times, 3 April (retrieved 18 July 2010):

     Mr. Brown is touchy about accusations that he is a packaged candidate, and bristles at the suggestion that Mr. Caddell pulls his strings.

   • 2003, Michael Elliott et al., "The War That Never Ends," Time, 7 July:

     "It may have begun that way," says a senior Pentagon official, "but as these attacks grow more numerous, you get the sense that there's someone pulling the strings at a higher level."

   • 2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport‎:

     But with the lively Dos Santos pulling the strings behind strikers Pavlyuchenko and Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.