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The week ahead in politics
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By BBC political editor Robin Oakley
This week's focus will remain on Ireland after the Ulster Unionist Council's acceptance of the choreography for the peace deal.
With Lord Archer remaining incommunicado the Tories will continue to thrash around for a new London mayoral candidate.
In the Commons there will be second readings for a number of less controversial bills like the Armed Forces Discipline Bill and the Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill, plus a debate on the forthcoming Euro summit and a more awkward one for the government on the report of the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care.
We can also expect to see Michael Portillo's reintroduction to the Commons, accompanied by shouts of, "Watch your back, William."
Northern Ireland: Business at last?
Perhaps this really is the business at last. Sinn Fein and IRA feathers have been ruffled by the Ulster Unionist insistence that they will meet again in early February to review the state of decommissioning, in effect imposing their own timetable on the process.
Sinn Fein has already objected that this is against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement but behind the scenes would probably accept that it was probably David Trimble's only hope of getting sufficient backing to proceed with the power sharing executive without a prior handover of arms.
The question is how awkward the IRA will now prove about actually delivering any hardware in order not to look as though it is being pushed by the Ulster Unionists.
There will also be pressure on Peter Mandelson as Secretary of State to make public any assurances he has given to the Ulster Unionist leadership about the "default mechanism" for removing Sinn Fein from the executive and dismantling the cross-border institutions if the IRA does not start handing over weapons before the end of January.
The big unionist fear remains that there will be no arms handover and that the government will find some excuse for nonetheless maintaining the power-sharing executive.
Tory troubles
William Hague's mixed feelings about the return of Michael Portillo are obvious. He is desperately short of big-hitters on his frontbench and can do with the star quality.
But Mr Portillo has returned at a moment when Mr Hague's judgement is under severe question, following his failure to make use of the ethics and integrity committee before giving Jeffrey Archer his blessing as a mayoral candidate and because of his determination to maintain Michael Ashcroft as party treasurer.
It is a mark of Labour's respect for Mr Portillo's abilities that they are targeting him heavily, insisting that he is a hardline right winger who would take the Tories even further in that direction than William Hague.
They are also seeking to destabilise Mr Hague by suggesting that Mr Portillo and his followers will be watching for every mistake, hoping to mount a challenge to his leadership.
In fact Mr Hague can rest assured. Mr Portillo knows that if he were to be seen encouraging such machinations the party faithful would take a dim view in the run-up to the election.
Nor would there be any point in him or any other challenger inheriting the party leadership before another election defeat which most of them privately regard as inevitable.
On Breakfast With Frost, Mr Portillo said that he would not challenge Mr Hague. But that is an assurance that only goes so far. It would not stop a stalking horse leading a challenge which resulted in the removal of Mr Hague and provoked a contest which Mr Portillo would be free to enter.
The other question is what job Mr Portillo should be given after he has spent a few months back in the Commons learning what life is like as an opposition backbencher.
Mr Hague has made clear that he does not plan to tie him in closely by giving him the party chairmanship and promoting the popular Michael Ancram elsewhere.
So the rest of his frontbench, notably the lacklustre shadow foreign secretary John Maples and the shadow chancellor Francis Maude, are on tenterhooks wondering how much their positions are under threat.
Lib Dems and the cabinet
The revelation in pages apparently stolen from Paddy Ashdown's diaries that Tony Blair had discussed with him and Lord Jenkins plans to drop two cabinet ministers and replace them with Lib Dems despite having won a huge majority has not exactly surprised the Westminster in-crowd.
Mr Blair's eagerness to forge a Labour/Lib Dem coalition which would exclude the Tories from power for a considerable period has long been apparent.
But what has never been explained is how he would push through such plans without provoking such a massive cabinet row that the whole thing would become unworkable.
Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Jack Straw would fight tooth and claw to prevent any such deal. So would the prime minister's influential press secretary Alastair Campbell.
Downing Street has adopted a relaxed attitude to the Sunday Telegraph revelations, conceding that the meeting took place but suggesting that there was a certain amount of wishful thinking in Mr Ashdown's colourful account.
The prime minister's spokesman has pointed out that several reshuffles have taken place since the "jolly dinner" without any Lib Dems being given appointments.
And the New Labour government will not now be fulfilling its election pledge to stage a referendum on PR for Westminster elections before the next British general election. The key prize sought by the Lib Dems.
Significantly too, there has been slippage over the first meeting of the joint cabinet committee on which Liberal Democrats sit since Charles Kennedy took over as leader, although Downing Street is still indicating there will be one before Christmas.
With Parliament steadily moving into pre-election mode and the Lib Dems' new leader harrying the government both over public spending and over civil rights, accusing them of promoting illiberal legislation, we can safely assume that coalition is off the agenda.
Meanwhile the main sufferer is Paddy Ashdown. His chances of winning a lucrative deal from publishers for his memoirs must have receded after the premature exposure of what would have been his crucial revelations.
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