Between nine and half ten on Tuesday night, The Sun published five different takes on Britain's brand-new prime minister. Reading them in publication order is like watching a mood ring have a breakdown. * The news desk, 10:30pm: Burnham “slashes bus fares to £2 across England as new PM makes 'breathing room' pledge to hard-up voters.” That's the warm register. “Slashes.” “Hard-up voters.” This is the vocabulary The Sun reserves for policies it wants readers to feel in their pockets. * Rewind half an hour. The paper's own editorial: Burnham's energy plan “was a good place to start — the problem is, his numbers don't add up.” Alongside it, a comment piece calling his VAT cut “robbing Peter to pay Paul… why do Labour refuse to tackle policies that make energy so expensive?” * And at nine sharp, the column on his cabinet clear-out: “A massacre by the Manchester Mafia — so will brutally sacked ministers now launch guerrilla war against new regime?” Regime. A two-day-old, democratically elected government. In the same paper that had “breathing room” typed up and ready ninety minutes later. * The word choices are the whole story. “Slashes” is what heroes do to bus fares. “Massacre,” “guerrilla war” and “regime” is how you cover a junta. Same man. Same night. Same building. * There's an innocent reading: news desk covers the giveaway, comment desk raises the doubts — every paper splits the work like that. But the size of the vocabulary gap is unusually honest about what's really going on. The Sun hasn't decided yet whether Burnham is a people's champion or prey. So it's running both editions at once and watching which one readers pat. * Eventually a decision will come down from somewhere in News Corp, and one of these two vocabularies will quietly retire. Until then, enjoy the rare sight of a tabloid holding confetti in one hand and knives in the other — and note the order they came out. Knives first. By ninety minutes.