Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister - a phrase that used to sound like a joke - made a lot of promises in his first speech from Downing Street. His announcement of £1.8bn has been reported as the first down payment on these pledges.
Here-in lies a key sample of what we can expect from Boris Johnson and his verbose new government. A big promise and an announcement, with all the PR trimmings to follow, which on inspection fails to live up to the terms.
All tell and no show. The Boris way.
It's also been the Tories way through all of their time in government, whether under Cameron or May. Announcing old funding again as new funding, relabelling and reannouncing, fiscal politics played out in the media rather than in the treasury. And all the while, the cuts go on.
In the present case, Boris has offered up a lump of extra cash for the NHS. But it isn't what it seems. In fact, the £1bn 'upfront' is money that the government had already promised to the NHS - in exchange for three years of trusts slashing their budgets - only to then block hospitals from spending it.
The second half is for what is know as capital spending, long term investment to pay now for projects that will be ready years from now. This kind of spending is deeply important, but does little for struggling hospitals in the present - and even that sum isn't coming right away.
What the government cares about are the flurry of headlines that follow these press releases - often printed wholly and uncritically in the media. While the front pages tell people what the Tories want them to hear, the analysis is buried and with it the debunking of the government's claims.
These headlines are the heart of a long term government strategy, all about governing by telling and not showing. It has allowed them to slash and slash again at budgets, and the services they fund, and to deflect criticism on to others - mostly the vulnerable, exposed by the Tories' own austerity politics.
Don't be fooled by the headlines. Don't let the Tories, as John Harris puts it, sow "discord and resentment via austerity" only to reap the rewards of the chaos with a sharp PR strategy. If we're not sharper ourselves, we'll face the consequences of Tory disaster politics while they profit.
