IF Prime Minister Tony Blair is to make just one New Year's resolution, it must be to stop exaggerating and to start telling the whole, unvarnished truth.

Just before Christmas, Mr Blair told British troops that there had been found in Iraq ''massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories''. This, he said, showed that Saddam Hussein had attempted to ''conceal weapons''.

Such a huge and important find seemed to come as news yesterday to Paul Bremer, the US official who is running Iraq. He said that it sounded like a "red herring".

And, of course, we know that if such "massive evidence" really had been discovered, news bulletins would have been interrupted as Mr Blair and President George Bush took to the airwaves to announce: "We got it." How Mr Blair in particular needs such a find to restore his reputation.

Today, if this "massive evidence" really exists, it has to be produced.

Quite why Mr Blair at times allows his tongue to run away with him is a mystery. We genuinely believe that Mr Blair, one of our local MPs, is a decent, honest and (largely) trustworthy chap. But he makes it very difficult to support him on an issue like the war, which is not especially popular, if he lobs a little fantastic top-spin onto something every now and then.

Diane Abbott said that Mr Blair was making the loyal backbench MPs who supported the war look like "pillocks". This is a little strong and rather rich coming from Ms Abbott, but she is right in that it presents Labour's opponents with an embarrassing own goal. Yesterday, quite rightly, the Tories were shouting about this being another example of "sexing up".

So as we approach 2004, and as we've been saying now for years, Mr Blair has to curb his natural enthusiasm which can at times be a winning quality but which, when it over-runs itself, can make Mr Blair and his supporters look rather absurd.