Well, we're still waiting. DA, as the cabinet domestic affairs committee is known in Whitehall, met this morning to sort out the ministerial differences but as yet no smoke signals have emerged.
Jack Straw, who chairs the committee, will be needing all his diplomatic skills to separate Patricia "cancer cabins" Hewitt and John "let 'em smoke fags" Reid, the two main protagonists in the great smoking division.
This morning, Tony Blair's official spokesman was put on the spot by the whole fiasco. He'd been assuring journalists at his morning and afternoon briefings yesterday that, while he would not discuss the "processology" of the discussions, the bill was on track to be published today.
That was before ministers refused to sign up to the health secretary's idea of letting pubs have sealed rooms to give the puffers somewhere to go.
This morning the spokesman was asked what had gone wrong. He replied: "We are confident that, by the end of the day, we will have a clear idea of where we are going, and that the cabinet committee system will deliver that clear idea."
Asked when the bill would be published, he said: "The important thing is that by the end of the day we will have a clear idea of a) the content and b) the timetable and how we will handle it in parliamentary terms." So now you know ...
