At most, only one of these two BBC stories can actually be true:

Blair says rebate ‘will remain’ (8 June, 2005)

Blair says EU rebate ‘has to go’ (21 June, 2005)

Which one could it be? They’re both so flatly contradictory that it leaves the casual reader baffled. Let’s read the text within the story and see if that sheds any light.

Blair says rebate ‘will remain’

The UK’s EU budget rebate remains justified and “will not be negotiated away”, Tony Blair has told MPs
He spoke amid claims other members want to freeze or axe the rebate, won by Margaret Thatcher in 1984, when leaders meet at a summit next week.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, he said: “The UK rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away. Period.”

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said it was not good enough for Mr Blair to say he would not negotiate away the rebate.

“What he needs to say is that he will not diminish its value in any way and that there will be no concessions and no fudging,” he added.

“Trying to extract the truth from this prime minister is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. He must be completely clear about what he means.”

Well, that’s pretty clear. In fact, I think that George Osborne is just causing trouble, trying to make a name for himself. I see little doubt about Blair’s intentions here. He’s pretty emphatic, I feel.

Let’s take a look at the other story then:

Blair says EU rebate ‘has to go’

Tony Blair has said Britain’s £3bn EU rebate is an “anomaly that has to go” - but he made clear that its removal had to be linked to farm subsidy reform.

Mr Blair said: “We have made it clear all the way through that we are prepared not just to discuss and negotiate upon, but to recognise that the rebate is an anomaly that has to go, but it has to go in the context of the other anomaly being changed away.”

(Emphasis mine).

Oops - sorry George. Looks like you were right to try to pin Blair down. Now we’re really confused. Which do we believe?

After the lies and deceits over Iraq - and, don’t forget, Blair was fully backed by his cabinet over these things - anything is believable but the problem here is not that Blair is covering up his lies it’s that he’s actually being forthright - blatant, even - with regards to two absolutely contradictory stances. And it’s not like there was enough time between speeches for his opinion to evolve into something else. He was a unilateral disarmer, a nationaliser and an anti-European before becoming a multi-lateralist, Thatcherite free-marketeer and Euro-fanatic - but the transformation did at least take a few years. This dramatic change of stance occurred in just two weeks.

What strikes me more though is that he must realise he’s taken a complete about turn over the rebate and yet has absolutely no qualms about it. Who does he think he is? Who does he think we are? His holding of two totally contradictory points of view suggests either staggering disregard for his reputation as an honest man (my, how I smile as I write that) or a split personality.

Either way, he shouldn’t be leading our country.