Editor's blog Tuesday 17 May 2011: Andrew Lansley, The Invisible Man?

Secretary Of State For The Time Being Andrew Lansley has not become The Invisible Man: he is due to make an appearance tomorrow, at the Kings Fund leadership and management event.

......................................................................

Click here for details of 'You say substantive and I say substantial', via subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

......................................................................

This is a thing of some note in the context of the current week: PM Cameron launched his third relaunch of the paused-by-popular-acclaim without his health jefe of seven years' standing. The PM's speech mentioned Liberatin' Lansley just once.

He has also cancelled a scheduled appearance for a listening exercise in the digital format of The Guardian NHS reforms liveblog, as his team told the Guardian journalists today.

Cameron faces an interesting dilemma with Lansley. Informed Whitehall correspondents say that he is not minded to have a reshuffle, although the antics of former Tory health spokesman Fantastic Dr Fox over the aid budget and the alleged penalty point antics of Chris 'Trying To Wrest The Middle Name 'Buff' Off Geoff' Huhne might shift his thinking a tad on the matter.

To cement his status as the NHS's own Mr Loverman, 'Shabba' Cameron needs a safe pair of hands in Richmond House.

You can say many things about Mr Lansley (and this website has done); but a safe pair of hands he demonstrably is not.

Hence his enforced Trappist demeanour, as part of the new NHS communications strategy. It's mildly surprising he's being let out tomorrow.

Lively, though. An event on leadership and management - and the man who has, with his fellow ministers, been castigating managers as "bureaucrats" (implicitly, wasteful ones) for the past year.

Could be fun.