Most of us, having had a week being shouted at by colleagues, castigated in public and the media and been told from your boss's office that you need to be ‘taken out and shot' would probably want a quiet night in, maybe a curry in front of an old B-movie to take your minds off events.

But then we're not politicians. And nor are we Andrew Lansley. So last week, with the storm raging around his head about the health and social care Bill and Newsnight filled with fuming doctors warning it would spell the end of the NHS as we know it, the secretary of state was to be found at the Brewery, London as guest speaker at the SOLACE annual dinner.