Forget Ed finally admitting on Daybreak that borrowing would be higher under Labour, there is only one story in town this morning: Iain Duncan Smith’s no nonsense dealing with rude Treasury officials. After Rachel Sylvester reported the “biting balls” comment in the Times, Team IDS have been stressing to the Mail that there was no biting involved. According to Tim Shipman they are “at pains to stress that he would be cutting, not biting”. Sadly Guido had already done the Photoshop…

Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake have already been on the receiving end of a cross-party slamming for their gushing Maggie tribute, now the unions are sticking the boot in. PCS fat cat Mark Serwotka has added his name to the growing list of figures across the spectrum criticising the piece:

“It is clear that some people do not see the civil service as the hundreds of thousands of dedicated public servants who work day in, day out providing vital services across the country, but rather as a cosy clique at the centre of government…this article is ill-judged, deeply unhelpful and risks doing damage to the civil service.”

They’re queuing up…

A bruising morning for Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake at the Public Administration Committee following their gushing Maggie tribute that infuriated pretty much everyone. Bernard Jenkin led the attack:

Jenkin: Did either of you work for Lady Thatcher?

Heywood: Not very closely

Kerslake: No

Jenkin: Was it (the tribute) cleared?

Jeremy: “It wasn’t cleared….we showed it to Craig as a courtesy.”

Then Paul Flynn stormed out, telling the Civil Service double team: “you’ve prostituted your high office and deserted your political neutrality”. Video to follow…

Following on from Guido’s earlier story about Jeremy Heywood’s Telegraph piece, here come the MPs to put the boot in. Labour’s John Mann tells Guido:

“Jeremy Heywood crosses well beyond the bounds of acceptable impartiality and the danger of this is that it sets precedence for the future. A civil service that is not neutral is neutered.”

Tory MP Aidan Burley adds:

‘Jeremy Heywood and Bob Kerslake would be wise to concentrate on their day jobs of implementing complex policies like welfare reform, rather than penning puff pieces based on their predecessors memories of another PM. It beggars belief that they should take it upon themselves to draft such a sycophantic article – have they not got more important things to do, like inform the decisions of the current Prime Minister? It’s a double edged sword: the tribute seems weakened by hidden digs and coded messages. If they don’t like David Cameron and Francis Maude daring to challenge the legendary Whitehall bureaucracy and inertia, perhaps they should offer themselves up as another much needed “efficiency saving”?’

Ouch…

A fawning tribute from the normally subdued double team at the top of the Civil Service. Writing in today’s Telegraph Sir Jeremy ‘Sherlock’ Heywood and Sir ‘Bungalow’ Bob Kerslake praise the “kindly and unswervingly loyal” Margaret Thatcher and declare that she was “prime minister who – whatever the pressures – was the best kind of boss.” The OpEd seems to have upset pretty much everyone.

While Tories are passing the sick bucket round and suggesting that this is nothing more than a PR move by the deeply unpopular Heywood to build some bridges; Labour types are equally concerned about the impartiality of the piece given the praise heaped on Maggie’s “radical tax reforms, the abandonment of exchange controls and prices and incomes policies, the introduction of Right to Buy, a major overhaul of industrial relations law and the world’s first privatisation programme.” Pretty much everything the left hated…

More seasoned Whitehall watchers have pointed out the subtle digs at Dave in the piece over Maggie’s apparently loyalty to those civil servant’s around her and her attention to detail – not two compliments you ever hear said about her successor. Ben Brogan, whose wife is a very senior Whitehall mandarin, sees digs at Francis Maude too. Perhaps they’re not so subtle. One Whitehall rager could not get their head round the logic of the “backroom boys” taking such a prominent and public stand: “If they want to be the story they should run for office…”

Civil Service World is reporting that Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the Civil Service, has blocked attempts by Francis Maude to allow Secretaries of State to have a greater say in hiring and firing Permanent Secretaries:

“There’s a shared view about the importance of civil service values, the value of an impartial civil service, and I don’t believe there’s any intention to move towards legislation this time.”

A shared view of self-protection…

After various rows at the Home Office and UK Border Agency Dame Helen Ghosh departed the Civil Service for the National Trust. In a great scoop by the Standard, it seems she’s been letting off some steam with her new found freedom:

Nothing to do with the fact that she was blocked from promotion to the most senior level of the civil service, pipped to the post by Sir Bob Kerslake of course. Revenge is better served subtly…

With the sudden, and possibly unwilling, departure of Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary Ian Watmore, the job has been given temporarily to Melanie Dawes. AKA “her in doors” to one Ben Brogan…

The switch-over makes today’s column by the Telegraph’s Deputy Editor about Steve Hilton versus the civil service all the more interesting:

 ”Without Mr Hilton, how much will survive? His [Dave's] proposed public sector reforms, let alone his ideas for slashing the Civil Service, are likely to stall..”

Slashing the civil service doesn’t look to be stalling this afternoon…