A review of Suzanne Heywood’s ‘What does Jeremy think?’

Jeremy Heywood’s ability to command the detail was immense, enabling him to see political and policy opportunities that no one else could.

Describe most work and professional activity and people have an immediate sense of what it involves: actor, carpenter, physiotherapist, singer, flight attendant. Yet to describe someone as a ‘public servant’ (or the more pejorative ‘bureaucrat’) illuminates little.

It describes people involved in activities as diverse as planning and delivering health care for their fellow human beings, engineers assessing the costs involved in building new rail infrastructure, or economists working on the national accounts.