"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize" - Tom Lehrer

The Guardian noticed the ACOBA report on The Lord Lansley CBE's extracurricular business activities.

Andrew Lansley (saviour, liberator) is going to be a management consultant.

The appointment of Northumbria Healthcare FT/ACO leader Jim Mackey as the debut chief executive of NHS Improvement has been pretty much universally welcomed.

At the risk of going with the consensus, he does indeed seem to be an excellent appointment. The double-act with chair Ed Smith, a formidable NED of NHS England, is a good start.

Well, that was interesting.

Last night, Our Saviour And Liberator Andrew Lansley took exception to yesterday's post on feeling sympathy for Jeremy Hunt.

On Twitter.

Replying to my Tweeting the link. Mr Lansley wrote, "when you're not issuing childish abuse, do you think NHSE(ngland) should be independent; if so, why not offer credit?".

It's a perfectly fair question.

Since working out yesterday that Sun King Simon Stevens is now the de facto Secretary Of State For Health and Jeremy Hunt is NHS director for patient safety, I've had an odd sensation bubbling through my giblets.

No, it's not wind. I've been feeling sorry for Jeremy Hunt.

And to be frank, it feels a little weird.

The current NHS landscape, polar ice sheets and tall buildings all have one thing in common. When they start to collapse, they seem to move at first slowly; then massively and fast.

Simon Stevens' speech to the Kings Fund's Integrating Care conference this morning confirmed the completion of what HPI identified as a longstanding shift in the Conservatives offshoring political power over the health service.

Health Policy Insight has long had a a soft spot for junior health ministers in what passes for our hearts.

The greatest was of course the legendary Sir Simon Burns.

Whoever could have predicted it? Data just released by Monitor (in great detail) and the TDA (in scant detail) show the NHS provider sector is on the widely-predicted course to at least a £2 billion deficit for 2015-16.

In other exclusive news, bears shit in the woods.

This latest dispatch from the health policy trenches begins with news of Jeremy Hunt in the toilet.

Literally.

It is a Virgin toilet, as we would expect for a Very Important Secretary Of State. However, this is a Virgin toilet in a Virgin Train to the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

The former NHS Comrade-In-Chief Sir David Nicholson gave the second NHS Providers Annual Lecture a few weeks ago.

It was a thoughtful, amusing and insightful presentation, expanding on some themes from his July seminar on what the Government should do about NHS finances, and introducing others anew.

In the interests of mischief, here are some key lines from his lecture, and what they might mean translated.

I have previously mentioned that NHS England Sun King Simon Stevens has a way with legislation that doesn't suit his strategy: he simply ignores the shit out of it, in the sure and certain faith that he won't be challenged.

The traumatic legacy of the 2012 legislation is such that PM David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne want to re-onshore health policy from Simon as much as they want a return to recession.