By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

The row surrounding Cherie Blair's property deals may look to some like a storm in a teacup.

And a string of loyalist labour MPs and others are lining up to support her against the media pack - any chance to kick the hated media is always leapt on with relish.

And the media attacks on the way Downing Street has handled the affair might indeed appear out of all proportion to the offence.

After all, the prime minister's wife does not appear to have done anything improper, merely confirm previous suspicions that she chooses some particularly odd people as friends.

But all this outrage on her behalf is, deliberately or otherwise, missing the point.

Not for the first time in the life of this government, the issue is about trust and truthfulness.

Public interest

Surely her supporters are not suggesting that, no matter what the merits of the charges levied against Mrs Blair, they should be answered with lies.

But, to put it bluntly, that is precisely what happened for five days before the Daily Mail, in effect, forced some sort of truthfulness from Downing Street.

The flats row has uncovered more fundamental issues

The media and the voters deserve not to be lied to by the prime minister's spokesmen about anything, irrespective of the merits of the charges or the motives of the accusers.

If the issue in question is not a legitimate area of public interest, Downing Street should argue that case.

Alternatively, and probably most effectively, spokesman can tell the truth and then tackle the media over the issue of unwarranted intrusion into private matters.

And Downing Street spokesmen deserve not to be put in the position where they unknowingly tell journalists untruths.

Past experience

But this has now happened on at least three specific occasions.

First it was during the row over the Hinduja brothers, then about emails at the centre of the Stephen Byers row.

The details were arcane but the significant fact was that journalists were told untruths by Downing Street spokesmen.

In the second instance, one of the spokesmen later made a personal statement to the journalists expressing his dismay at what had happened.

He was not a happy man.

He is a civil servant whose future employment prospects, not to mention his own integrity, are on the line.

He does not tell bare-faced lies to journalists.

But now it has happened again and there are suggestions that this same civil servant is just about at the end of his tether.

It has always been suspected that the spin-obsessed government is ready to avoid telling awkward truths when it suited them.

'Dangerous ground'

It is nothing particularly new for governments of all colours to occasionally want to avoid the truth.

Equally genuine misunderstandings and cockups do happen. But probably not this regularly.

This habit is of a different order.

It suggests the words coming from Downing Street spokesmen cannot be trusted - rightly or wrongly, and that the prime minister, through his official mouthpieces, cannot be trusted to tell the truth.

By any measure that is a hugely dangerous position for a government to get into.