Today's Guardian reports on the work published by Colin Pritchard and Tamas Hickish in the British Journal of Cancer.

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Click here for details of 'The Buttle Of Britain - SOS accountability, meet the long grass', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

Longstanding readers will remember our Future Forum joke: Pinter The Coalition Health Policy Polar Bear, walks into a bar, approaches the barman, and says "I'd like a ........................................................................... Health And Social Care Bill cocktail, please".

The barman replies, "Why the big pause?"

Ah, the old jokes. They're still the oldest.

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Key changes to the GMS Contract for 2012-13 have been announced.

Full details are online here

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Long-standing readers will be aware that the Coalition Government's public health policies have not quite been to our taste.

We said a year ago that their White Paper "takes the piss more thoroughly than a phalanx of urinals".

Nothing since then has altered that view.

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Health Policy Intelligence is our weekly subscription-based analysis service.

The new issue, 'A shadow no bigger than Comrade Sir David’s gripping fist - Lansley, Nicholson and Chairman Mal vie for supremacy', is now out.

Health Policy Intelligence is not available as free content. Subscription costs £8 a month / £69 a year for an individual. Increasing discounts are available to organisations wanting to subscribe for groups of more than 5 and 10 individuals.

I'm confused. (Regular readers will not find this statement to be a surprise.)

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Click here for details of 'A shadow no bigger than Comrade Sir David’s gripping fist - Lansley, Nicholson and Chairman Mal vie for supremacy', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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An email from a Health Policy Insight reader points out a fascinating wrinkle in the appointment of Chairman Mal - Professor Malcolm Grant - as chair of the NHS Commissioning Board.

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Click here for details of 'A shadow no bigger than Comrade Sir David’s gripping fist - Lansley, Nicholson and Chairman Mal vie for supremacy', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

The Secretary Of State For Health has a way with letters, if not with words.

Well, he does if the said letters' absence gets mentioned in the Commons chamber.

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Click here for details of ' shadow no bigger than Comrade Sir David’s gripping fist - Lansley, Nicholson and Chairman Mal vie for supremacy', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

Speech by Rt Hon Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health - 'Rooting out poor performance'. Reform Conference: Wednesday 26 October 2011

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Click here for details of 'A shadow no bigger than Comrade Sir David’s gripping fist - Lansley, Nicholson and Chairman Mal vie for supremacy', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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A shadow no bigger than the size of Comrade Sir David Nicholson's gripping fist passes over the NHS landscape today, with the shadow establishment of the NHS Commissioning Board.

Below is the text of the recent update from DH.

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