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.

There is a bitter symmetry between the incidence and the prevalence of the punishment beating in NHS culture.

The first reason why the culture of punishment beating exists?

Existential teleology.

There is a cadre of the managerial community whose purpose is to administer punishment beatings.

Therefore, punishment beating must have value: part of the management infrastructure exists to perpetuate punishment beatings. (Without such value, there would be no punishment beatings.)

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Money, power and ownership are central to the politics and policy of the NHS.

They're also often misunderstood.

Money is back in the news this morning with Virgin toilet misuser Jeremy Hunt apparently offering junior doctors an 11% pay rise as part of changes to the junior doctors' contract.