Changing the Senate’s rules on judicial filibustering was first addressed in 2003, during the successful Democratic filibuster against Miguel Estrada, whom Bush had nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ted Stevens, a Republican Senate veteran from Alaska, was complaining in the cloakroom that the Democratic tactic should simply be declared out of order, and, soon enough, a group of Republican aides began to talk about changing the rules. It was understood at once that such a change would be explosive; Senator Trent Lott, the former Majority Leader, came up with “nuclear option,” and the term stuck.

The Financial Times, March 10, 1998, published this amusing description of a similar use of the phrase in England, when some wanted to end the practices of playing "I Spy" and banning legislators from breaking out top hats to protest objectionable legislation.

An influential cross-party committee of MPs yesterday struck a blow against verbosity, eccentricity and paranoia in the Commons by proposing the abolition of time-honoured rituals such as the use of top hats during votes.

The plans - which include an eight-minute ceiling on speeches and the abolition of the ancient "I spy strangers" ritual for clearing spectators from the Commons gallery - were published in a report by the modernisation select committee.

The report, Conduct in the Chamber, recommended that the Speaker of the Commons be given discretion to impose a variable time limit on speeches - though never less than eight minutes - and said privy councillors who are not frontbenchers should lose their priority speaking rights.

The modernisation committee also called for an alternative to the bizarre spectacle of both male and female MPs donning a top hat when moving a point of order during a vote. "This practice has almost certainly brought the House into greater ridicule than any other, particularly since the advent of television," it said.

The committee recommended that the "I spy strangers" convention should be scrapped. The age-old cry - dating back to the era when all proceedings were secret, and used during the second world war to clear the chamber during sensitive debates - has been employed more recently by MPs as a time-wasting tactic. "We believe this archaic practice has long outlived any useful purpose," the committee said.

One Conservative MP, fresh from helping to "talk out" a bill to outlaw fox-hunting last Friday, said the convention was only one of a number of ways to "filibuster" legislation. " 'I spy' is the nuclear option," he said. "But members intent on frustrating a bill can still deliberately table numerous amendments, or shuffle extremely slowly through the voting lobbies." (emphasis supplied) (available on lexis.com)