Reports that Gordon Brown’s speech saved the day are wide of the mark. It was not brilliant rhetoric or piercing analysis that has staved off a challenge to his premiership, but the shift in global economics giving him the opportunity to take a political lead in uncertain times. Having pleased everyone from the Mail to the Mirror , Brown must now set out the substance of the tough choices he talked about - by elucidating what these are.

TALKING THE WALK ON TOUGH CHOICES

In recent weeks and months, much of the media has formed a conclusion that Gordon Brown is unsuited to modern politics. Last week’s economic events may mean, however, that in the last week politics has changed to suit Gordon Brown.

THE ECONOMIC TIDE CHANGES, AND GORDON BROWN FINDS HIMSELF ON MORE FAMILIAR SHORES

The Labour Party want to devolve power in the health service to those best placed to make decisions. The Conservatives criticise the centralizing tendencies of the government and favour greater localism. The Liberal Democrats remain strong advocates of local accountability and decisions made locally.

Today’s HPT wonders, what are we all arguing about? All united in a common desire to empower local people, it should be straightforward to achieve. No? Just what do the parties mean by achieving greater local accountability and is it the same thing?

Just when you were thinking that nostalgia isn't what it used to be (oil price spike; credit tightening; house prices off a cliff; unemployment and inflation rising - let's party like it's 1974 / 1981 / 1991!), some great news breaks.

The Quiff Of Doom is back.

And he's using the word "change" (copyright Barrack Obama) a lot.

In fact by the look of this, policy-wise Alan Milburn has joined the Lib Dems .

Standing in the Halifax today, waiting to pay in a cheque (I love to swim against the tide), I was reflecting on the current havoc of the financial markets and some things that it means for healthcare.

One thing that it means is that a lot of highly numerate graduate calibre people will be looking for jobs due to the contraction of the investment banking and private equity businesses.

Tom Smith returns with a discussion of the day's political and policy vogue.

So what's new today? Apart from the downfall of free market capitalism and the end of the world as we know it? And no, I don't feel fine, I've got a slight ache in my wrist.

Well, I thought it would be good to find out a bit about the background of Patrick Carter - Lord Carter of Coles, the inaugural chair of the new NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel. So I did, and you can read it here.

by Andy Cowper, editor, Health Policy Insight

Meet Patrick Robert Carter - Lord Carter of Coles, a Labour peer. He co-founded and sold Westminster Healthcare, ‘saved’ the Wembley Stadium rebuild, strongly supports Titan prisons, chairs a big list of government committees, lives in Islington and was Jack Straw’s best man at both of his weddings. He is 62.

He’s also the inaugural chair of the new NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel, which may make him the fourth most important person in the NHS.

Welcome to another fine week in health policy. Don't mention the imminent implosion of free-market capitalism.

The new Maynard Doctrine is now online, in which Alan Maynard suggests that there may be a thing or two wrong with drug pricing and with the relationship between 'the industry' and medical education.

Scandalous thinking!

Elsewhere today, you will find a new feature about the Lib Dems' health policy at their party conference.

by Andy Cowper, editor, Health Policy Insight

The Liberal Democrats go into the party conference season as the only major Westminster party trying to sell its members (and by extension, the electorate) a major shift in policy. They are the only party promising to cut taxes overall.

And their able deputy leader and finance spokesman Vincent Cable, in an un-leaked announcement in his speech, has suggested that more may be afoot of a tax cut even than their existing promise.