Coalition Cabinet:
who will Cameron have to sacrifice?
The Mole: Clegg will be deputy.
But who’s his role model? Harriet Harman? Surely not!
As the BBC radio weatherman put it early today, the country has woken up to an unusually cold and frosty morning. Well, if the Torygraph's Benedict Brogan, flag-waver in chief for the Conservatives, can get away with writing last night that "a rainbow lit up the Mall" as David Cameron arrived at the palace, then the Mole must be allowed a little license, too.
When I last posted yesterday evening, we knew David Cameron was the new Prime Minister, but little else.
Overnight, the picture is somewhat clearer. George Osborne, despite constant voices off during the election campaign - including this one - advising Cameron to drop him, is installed as Chancellor. William Hague is Foreign Secretary and Liam Fox is Defence Secretary.
The other big departments of state are expected to be handed out this morning. The question is which if any of Cameron's loyal shadow team will have to be dropped to make way for a promised five Cabinet seats for the Lib Dems?
Tory Andrew Lansley looks likely to get health, which he has shadowed for six years. But will Michael Gove still get the chance to be Schools Secretary?
Gove said famously only a few days ago that he would happily drop his claim to the role if it meant the Tories could reach a coalition agreement with the Lib Dems. He may yet have to do so, though Cameron is certain to want to reward him for his high-profile loyalty during the election.
Early this morning, the only Lib Dem certainties for the Cabinet were Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Danny Alexander.
The BBC has learnt that Cable will be responsible for business and banks. Whether he performs this task with the title of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, or whether Tory dinosaur Ken Clarke is asked to hand over his business portfolio, remains to be seen.
Alexander, as well as being a key Lib Dem player during the election and the subsequent coalition talks, represents the constituency of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey. He looks like a shoo-in for Scottish Secretary.
Nick Clegg, we know, will be deputy Prime Minister with a seat at the Cabinet table. But it is not certain whether he will also have a departmental portfolio.
Nor, given that this is the first formal coalition in British politics since WW2, is it at all certain what 'deputy PM' will mean.
Deputy a la Harriet Harman, who stood in for the occasional week while the boss was on holiday and for the final half-hour hiatus between Brown's departure and Cameron's arrival? Surely not.
Or deputy a la Peter Mandelson? A constant shadow in the Prime Minister's life, a hovering consiglieri, available to issue the threats and bury the bodies? I think we should be told! 
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