If you're not a Radio 4 listener you may not know what the fuss is about. If you are, you'll be in no doubt. Allow me to add one small tribute to the many that are being paid to my colleague - the World at One's Nick Clarke - .
Nick asked once asked what I consider to be the perfect question - proving that you could balance persistence with courtesy. He was being fobbed off by the government's straight-bat man Alastair Darling who was insisting on talking about the Tories' policies and refusing to answer about his own. Nick paused briefly after one such answer - just long enough for the audience to notice. Then in that gloriously rich bass of a voice asked, "Minister, just for the sake of neatness could you answer the question I asked you". Glorious.
He is a huge loss.
The news emerging from this morning's Cabinet will be greeted with disappointment by some and scepticism by others.
I'm told - and not just by the spin doctors - that the Cabinet had a good and serious first discussion about Trident. It should be noted, though, that this was more a discussion about the process of taking a decision than it was a debate about the issue.
It has now been agreed that there will be a White Paper next month followed by three months of consultation and a Commons vote in the New Year. The White Paper will address the why, the whether and the how. In other words, why have a deterrent at all in the post Cold War world; whether you need to take a decision now and how to keep it - upgrade or replace Trident - if you do.
It will end with a specific recommendation. The vote looks likely to be on that rather than merely on the principle of keeping an "independent nuclear deterrent" or on a menu of options (who wants, one minister said to me, the Commons to design a new nuclear weapon?)
Ministers on all sides are eager to brief how grown up and consensual this debate was. So that's all right then? Well no, it won't be for many outside who fear that this decision is being over-informed by fear and hurry.
• The fear in question is not of others who might have nuclear weapons but of Labour politicians who grew up in the 1980s of being portrayed once again as unilateral disarmers. This was, I'm told, raised to general laughter this morning.
• The hurry in question is the desire to get this divisive issue sorted before a Labour leadership election.
It's intriguing that it's been Tories - like the former Defence Secretary Michael Portillo - who are saying don't replace Trident.
