Profile: Gus O’Donnell

SIR Gus O’Donnell is the quiet man of steel who has been at the heart of government for a generation.

The father-of-one, a former Glasgow University lecturer, is softly spoken, but never shirks a fight.

In a letter to David Cameron he warned that personal attacks on civil servants “will not be tolerated”, after comments by a Tory spin doctor about Jenny Watson, head of the Electoral Commission.

Sir Gus, 59, has never become attached to either side.

His relationship with Gordon Brown became so strained that the former prime minister’s wife Sarah refused to shake his hand when the couple left Number 10.