I'm loving the de-escalation of the junior doctors' contracts dispute.

No sooner has Sir David Dalton been drafted in to pour healing oil on the baby pool's troubled waters, than Jeremy Hunt threatens the 'nuclear option' of imposing the un-agreed contract.

Fingers crossed, yesterday's non-emergency junior doctors' strike has apparently passed without significant incident. There has clearly been minor silliness at Sandwell, but generally speaking, the planned consultant cover has gone safely and well.

The fact that this dispute about pay, terms and conditions has even got to the point of a strike should shame both sides.

Pay, terms and conditions

NHS funding arguments fall into three broad categories. In ascending order of usefulness, these are: how to fund; how much to fund; and what value the funding delivers. The first two categories are more political and philosophical; the third is more technical-economic.

Former Lib Dem health minister, mental health champion and good egg Norman Lamb recently proposed a cross-party commission on health and care funding.

Samantha Jones is director of the New Care Models programme, which is part of the NHS Five-Year Forward View. Interview by HPI editor Andy Cowper.

Health Policy Insight: How will you sustain the energy and enthusiasm with which Vanguards were launched as finances tighten?

Samantha Jones: I think the really powerful energy was generated by the Five-Year Forward View, with the direction it set and the care models it articulated being very widely welcomed.

It would be far, far better for James Titcombe and his family if this book hadn't had to be written. Tragically, Joshua's Story did have to be written.

James Titcombe's powerful, pacy writing is all the more effective for being clear-eyed. The admirable strength of his character in wanting Joshua's avoidable death to be a catalyst for change, honesty and learning is a vivid contrast to the greyscale obfuscations, half-truths, insults and outright lies he repeatedly encountered.

The NHS Commissioning Board met today, and unanimously passed its latest tranche of documents. (That's passed as in agreed, obvs.)

The Government's Mandate to the NHS was also published.

Various things in these are noteworthy.

'We've funded the Five-Year Forward View in full.' 'Oh no you haven't!'

The degree of choice for many of our political lords and masters is politics, philosophy and economics. The university of choice is of course Oxford.

Rob Webster is chief executive and Stephen Dorrell is chair of the NHS Confederation. Part One of this interview is here.

HPI: Are our current models for dealing with failure, be it organisational or regulatory, coherent?

Stephen Dorrell and Rob Webster are the chair and chief executive of the NHS Confederation. This is part one of a two-part interview.

HPI: Now we have the clarity of the 2015 Comprehensive Spending Review, what are the three main priorities for the system?

Rob Webster: The Spending Review doesn't make our task any easier; just clearer. Nothing’s changed in the degree of difficulty of the improvements we need to make. But it seems that we do have political will and a financial context.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" - Third Law Of Motion, Sir Isaac Newton

"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it" - First Law Of Motion, Sir Isaac Newton

The Sun King Also Rises, you might say.