Editor's blog Thursday 5 May 2011: More speculation on Mr Lansley's political defenestration

The 'will he, won't he and how imminently?' debate on PM David Cameron's oncoming sacking of Secretary Of State For The Time Being Andrew Lansley took another iteration in today's Guardian, courtesy of BMA chair of council Dr Hamish Meldrum's appearance on yesterday's Guardian NHS reform liveblog.

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Click here for details of 'Cameron the Winner; Lansley the Magnificent', via subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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Health policy geeks will enjoy speculating on who the three un-named policy bigwigs are who spoke anonymously to Denis Campbell.

There's not much more to add to this. The schools of thought are pretty entrenched.

It is reasonably clear that Cameron does not want to be seen to let adverse headlines blow his ministers away.

Equally, it is pretty clear that keynote legislation is very rarely stopped for a listening exercise (after a lengthy formal consultation) because it's all going swimmingly well.

Cameron told his party conference in 2006 that he could do his political priority in just three letters "NHS". If the current malaise were to be sustained, and things to go wrong as is distinctly possible, then Labour's general election party political broadcasts will simply run a clip of this film on a loop.

Lansley is a detail obsessive, and critics of his ideas are "completely wrong". As qualities, these might work for the senior civil servant he once was; but they are losing attributes in a major spending department politician seeking a huge, unprecedented reform. He is reputed to be privately charming, but he is publicly querulous. And he can no more sell his reforms to the public or indeed most NHS staff than he can fly.

If Mr Cameron decides to tie himself to Andrew Lansley, he needs to resign himself to losing the next general election: something it is unlikely he will do.