For those of you who can't get out, Defoe toed in a cross after 28 mins(ish).

It's not a very good display. Slovenia look more confident on the ball. All their team look like clones of Goran Ivanisevic.

The match is a bit like World-Class Commissioning - exciting but crap.

Morning. From a startlingly rattly Virgin train to Liverpool, please find for your edification our new interview with NHS Alliance chief exceutive Michael Sobanja on the future of clinically led commissioning, the role of managers in the brave new world and what’s missing to make it all work.

Our new Michael Dixon interview focuses on engaging GPs, fitting the willingness to risk, and locally leading the NHS.

You may already have seen the previous instalments:

Power is sometimes the most fascinating thing in the world, and yet it so easily becomes the dullest.

Power in and of itself isn’t interesting. It’s just heft, a monolithic kind of stupid freedom.

Power becomes fascinating in relation to purpose, and in observing its affect on relationships. Used properly, power is always a means; never an end.

Contrary to some last-minute rumours, VAT goes up to 20% from January 2011 following today's budget.

There is an interesting corrolary side-effect, which is to wipe out the promised £200 million for the National Cancer Drugs Fund.

Whoever drafted the revision to the NHS Operating Framework 2010-11 deserves a sharp clip round the ear for inventing the word “re-ablement”. (Unless there’s a DH sweepstake to see who can come up with the most hideous policy neologism – if that were happening, I would quietly respect “re-ablement” as a worthy challenger to “polyclinic”.)

Our new interview with Andrew Donald, chief operating officer of NHS Birmingham East and North PCT is now online.

The first in the series, with NHS Confederation acting chief executive Nigel Edwards, was published on Friday.

Morning all.

The revised Operating Framework 2010-11 has just been published by the Department of Health. UPDATE: This is now the correct link. A bad mistake by the DH web team.

According to the press release, the revised OF will:

Hello.

As the countdown starts to next week's publication (Monday or Tuesday, we think) of the revised Operating Framework for 2010-11 and the NHS Confederation's agenda-setting annual conference, Health Policy Insight is running a series of policy interviews with practitioners, policymakers and influencers.

The first in the series, with NHS Confederation's acting chief executive Nigel Edwards, is here.

We hope you enjoy them.

You may remember that we covered the issues around ex-chief executive John Watkinson's employment tribunal against his employer Royal Cornwall NHS Trust, and the reported involvement of Sir Ian Carruthers of NHS South West strategic health authority in his dismissal.

NHS South West were not happy about this as you might also recall.

The cuts have begun.

BBC News reports that the plan to rebuild North Tees and Hartleppool Hospital at a cost of £450 miliion has been cut completely, and that the Health Research Support Service initiative, with a budget of £73 million, has been suspended, pending the comprehensive spending review.

The message about cutting research and development sends a worrying signal.