The Conservatives have joined anti-agreement unionists in accusing British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair of deceiving parliament over Gen John de Chastelain's report on the latest act of IRA decommissioning.
Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Mr Quentin Davies levelled the charge following the general's effective confirmation of Democratic Unionist Party claims that he had given Mr Blair, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, no more detail about the decommissioning event than he disclosed at his Hillsborough press conference on Tuesday.
The DUP and other anti-agreement unionists emerged from meetings with the general on Thursday night accusing Mr Blair of misleading MPs on Wednesday when he repeated his claim that the public in Northern Ireland "would be satisfied" if they knew what he knew about the IRA's third decommissioning act.
The DUP's contemporaneous note of its meeting with the decommissioning commission on Thursday records Gen de Chastelain telling the party's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson: "We didn't go beyond our remit. We indicated that the event was greater than the last and gave an explanation of the kind of ordinance ... I gave them (the two prime ministers) no more detail than I have told you."
Pressed to say the governments had no more information than that disclosed in his public report, the general is quoted as replying: "Unless they are reading something else into the reports."
This appeared to chime uncomfortably with a report in yesterday's News Letter quoting a Downing Street source suggesting that Mr Blair was in fact offering only "an educated guess" about the scale and content of the IRA's third act of decommissioning..
And even some pro-agreement Ulster Unionists said privately it was hard to see how it could be otherwise, given the commission's public insistence that Mr Blair and Mr Ahern had not been given an inventory of the event.
Now Mr Davies is demanding that Mr Blair return to the House of Commons to provide MPs with "a full and frank explanation".
In his statement Mr Davies said; "It has become quite clear ... that the prime minister deceived parliament on Wednesday in a far more blatant fashion than has yet occurred on the issue of IRA weapons."
During Commons questions on Wednesday, Mr Blair had told the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith: "He (the general) gives certain information - not the full information, but certain information - to us, as the two governments. Although we are not at liberty to disclose that information without his permission, we are working hard to try to find a way in which we can do so because I believe, on the basis of what we know, that people would be satisfied if they knew the full details."
Mr Davies said: "Three things emerge unambiguously from this. First, the Prime Minister is claiming that he has private information, going beyond what is in the public domain about Tuesday's act of IRA decommissioning. Second, that the information - "certain information" - was given to him by Gen de Chastelain.
Third, Tony Blair is giving his assurance as prime minister to the public that if they knew what he knew they would be satisfied."
The Tory spokesman continued: "In fact all of this is completely untrue. Gen de Chastelain has made it clear before a series of witnesses that he has given no information to the British and Irish governments that goes beyond his public statements. The Prime Minister has therefore told a blatant untruth as to the facts, and given an assurance that is entirely bogus."
Mr Blair's official spokesman refused to be drawn on the details yesterday.
"We respect the confidentiality both of the general's discussions with the IRA and his discussions with the prime minister.
However he added: "The PM had good reason to say what he did."
While this last assertion seemed likely only to provoke further questions, Mr Davies dismissed Downing Street's confidentiality defence because, he said, "the Prime Minister specifically said that the source was General de Chastelain."