The buzz words of 2010 explained

Assange – The act of dressing self-indulgence up as piety, eg "don't tell me you only stayed in the pub to look after your mate. That's a load of assange and you know it!" Austerity – Sanctimonious meanness. Bigot – Person whose determination to have a point of view interrupts your busy campaigning schedule. Blowout preventer – Device on deepwater oil rigs that, confusingly, doesn't prevent blowouts Bondage – The sado-masochistic relationship between financial markets and European economies. Cable – Any communication that is supposed to be private but ends up embarrassingly public. Chilcot – A shade of quick-drying white paint used for covering unsightly stains on a former prime minister's reputation. Cleggmania – That brief moment when shopping where you consider being adventurous and trying something new before deciding to stick with the usual. Coalition – One of those weddings where the bride and groom are clearly ill-matched and only temporarily infatuated and where all the guests gossip about how long it will last. Debate – A TV game show in which three politicians are asked questions from a studio audience and have to try to remember the questioner's name. Debt – A curse and a blight, except when incurred by students to pay university tuition fees, in which context it is an opportunity and an engine of social mobility. Deficit – An excuse to do anything really out of order, eg: "Yes, I did spill red wine on your new white carpet, but what you must remember is that Labour left that carpet with a deficit of red wine; my spillage was the only responsible course of action." Ednostic – The state of sharing Ed Miliband's social democrat views, while not being persuaded he can ever win an election. Election – Reality show for unattractive people in which members of the audience only get one vote. Fairness – A drab resort town (pronounced like Skegness) where couples in "coalitions" (see above) say they will go for their honeymoon. Fifa – A unit of currency used exclusively for procuring the right to host international sporting events. Hunt (vulg) – A term of abuse used when likening someone to a Conservative cabinet minister. iPad – A very big phone that doesn't make phone calls. Jeremy (vulg, rhyming slang) – See "hunt". Kettling – A police technique for treating people as if they were lots of clothes being packed into a small suitcase. Kindle – A device that enables you to not read books you have bought without feeling guilty, since you can't see them lying around unopened. Localism – A political philosophy according to which local authorities get the blame for cuts ordered in Whitehall. Middleton – A demographic category, like middle class, only posher and richer. Miliband – A unit of measurement describing the quantity of affection between brothers competing for the same job. Obama – A unit of time defined by the period that elapses between first experiencing the hope that things will change and then realising that they won't. Phone-tapping – A malicious practice employed by scurrilous journalists and wholly unknown to Andy Coulson, Downing Street head of communications, and formerly editor of the News of the World . Pledge – A meaningless phrase, a chat-up line based on feigned sincerity; a vow that dissolves on entry into a "coalition". Progressive – A decorative word with no specific meaning, applied to government policies to make them sound nicer; artificial sweetener used to disguise the taste of disgusting medicine. Protest – What angry lovers do when they realise they've been spun a "pledge". QE2 – quantitative easing: the sequel, starring US federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, in which the heroes of QE1 get together for another rollercoaster adventure in monetary policy. Rooney – A unit of pressure used when measuring the impact of popular expectation on performance; rooneys can be converted into "obamas" using the Clegg scale of public disappointment. Royal Wedding – A ritual that can be used very occasionally to promote "middletons" to higher social status. Scrounger – Person whose lifestyle is supported by the state, with the exception of MPs and royalty. Tweet – Noise made by a bird; nice surprise for Jonathan Ross. Universal credit – A special kind of cross-party acclaim reserved for very rightwing Conservatives who manage to express a modicum of social conscience. VAT – A receptacle for the abandonment of old "pledges". Vince – The act of screwing up one's face when exposed to extreme rightwing policies, eg the cuts went so deep he vinced in pain. Vuvuzela – An instrument of torture for inflicting irritation on a scale only slightly below that produced by watching the England squad's performance at the World Cup in South Africa. Wiki – A prefix applied to mundane objects or actions to give them a veneer of hi-tech subversive credibility. X Factor – A brilliant long-term experiment to test the tolerance of the British public to vote-rigging and other kinds of electoral fraud. Youth – An affliction that makes people strangely susceptible to "pledges" and "protest". Z-list – The roll-call of celebrities who will be endorsing the Lib Dems at the next election.