Right: let's sing the bass line together:

"Dum dum dum du-du-dum-dum
Dum dum dum du-du-dum-dum"

Theresa May has blinked first in her ill-advised face-off with Sun King Simon Stevens. (Facing off against a Sun King: I mean, you're bound to blink first, no?)

And admitted that "the NHS is under pressure".

Karl Marx wrote in the eighteenth brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, quoting Hegel, ”all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He (Hegel) forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce”.

I wrote yesterday that Team Theresa May's founding philosophy appears to be 'if at first you don't succeed, make precisely the same mistake again - but even harder'.

Six months since her arrival in 10 Downing Street after the other Conservative leadership candidates disappeared in puffs of stupidity and self-importance, we can tell the founding philosophy of Team Theresa May.

'If at first you don't succeed, make precisely the same mistake again - but even harder'.

The punishment leakings will continue until morale improves

Connoisseurs of U-turns are going to have some fun with Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration. The Teflon determination on absolute control that served Mrs May well at the chaotic Home Office is a poor approach to running the whole of government.

Today's U-turn isn't surprising. Following the Autumn Statement, I wrote on Twitter ”there will be quite a few Conservative MPs who are surprised and uncomfortable that nothing new was done for social care today”.

NHS Improvement chair Ed Smith talks to Health Policy Insight about the new ‘Developing People, Improving Care’ framework

Health Policy Insight: What is the main aim of the new ‘Developing People, Improving Care’ framework?

Just when you thought this week couldn't get any sillier, Team Brexit have smashed all records for sheer bare-faced political lying.

I'm not making this up, unfortunately: Change Britain stalwarts Michael Gove, Steve Baker and Gisela Stuart have demanded that Theresa May spend a £200 million a week "Brexit bonus" on the NHS.

1. Social care got less than nothing
Not only were the sector-wide representations that social care needed more funding ignored (to the point where the Chancellor didn't even let councils raise the local precept), the hike to the national minimum wage next April (from £7.20 an hour to £7.50) will increase the labour costs of a sector that is seeing high levels of provider exit due to unprofitability.

Well. Wasn’t that a bracing few weeks?

Let’s start with the money, shall we? NHS Improvement’s Q2 financial report shows the NHS provider sector gamely struggling its way back towards financial balance.

The Imperial Phase in 10 Downing Street just keeps getting shorter.

Tony Blair's lasted just over a Parliament (though he won another general election after the Iraq war).

In the world of health policy, life imitates art: the first time as tragedy, the second time as Yes, Minister.

'The Bed Of Nails' is an iconic 'Yes, Minister' episode, in which civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby observes that "the ship of state is the only one that leaks from the top".