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…