Andrew Lansley has been "demoted" from Health Secretary to Leader of the Commons.
Full story: Lansley replaced by Hunt in health job (BBC News)
I shall miss writing about Lansley. He has featured regularly on this blog, especially in recent months. In March, for example, I wrote: Andrew Lansley: pride before a fall.
In April I wrote: If Lansley is "open-minded" on plain packaging I'm a banana.
There are plenty of other references to him but my written relationship with the former Secretary of State for Health extends beyond this blog. Last year, for example, I wrote an article for Politics.co.uk: The bully state re-emerges in Lansley's anti-smoking crusade.
Most recently, in response to Lansley being listed as a "Supporter of Plain Packs" on the Plain Packs Protect website (while the public consultation on standardised packaging was still taking place), I wrote How stupid is Plain Packs Protect.
I even sent an email to the Department of Health in which I asked:
Is it appropriate for the Secretary of State for Health to be listed as a supporter of plain packs (by a campaign that receives public money) in the middle of a consultation on the issue and before the DoH has published its report on the consultation?
The matter was also raised in Forest's 64-page submission.
Now, weeks after the DH informed Forest (in an email) that the inclusion of Lansley as a supporter of plain packaging "was an error" and that the Health Secretary "has been very clear that he has an entirely open mind on standardised packaging for tobacco product", Lansley has gone.
Fancy that.
