There has been an interesting example this week of of a neologism being used to deflect attention from the substance of a story.

Amid the many people entangled in the aftermath of the leak of documents from Panama is the Russian President Vladimir Putin. I should of course point out that the President himself was not mentioned at all in Panamanian dispatches – instead, a number of people or organisations with connections to him have been cited. Such revelations inevitably focused attention on President Putin himself.

So how did his official spokesman deal with all of this? Simple. He used a word nobody had ever heard before and, sheep-like, everybody focused on that word and used it in their headlines, rather than actually pursuing the story.

The word was ‘Putinophobia’.

Dmitry Peskov said: “This Putinophobia abroad has reached such a point that it is in fact taboo to say something good about Russia, or about any actions by Russia or any Russian achievements.” Brilliant moving of the goalposts. Invent a term which everybody will latch onto and is likely to be used again, and use it as a way to get people to focus on something else rather than the substance of the story. The art form of coining a new word as a way of owning the story.

Given the way that David Cameron has now become embroiled in the Panamian fallout, can we expect to see one of his spokesmen using this formulation as a way of moving the attention away from him? Maybe the criticism will be described as ‘Cameronophobia’ or ‘Toryphobia’. However, given the level of criticism currently being levelled at the Prime Minister, it is hard to imagine #toryphobia replacing #resigncameron as a popular Twitter hashtag any time soon.