When Michael Heseltine wrote his acclaimed autobiography, Life in the Jungle, he assumed his political career was over. He returned to Haymarket, his publishing business, and intended to explore more of the world and pursue his passions outside politics.

His assumption was wrong. David Cameron called him, tentatively at first but gradually with increased responsibility, back to the corridors of power.

This second memoir is a potpourri of reminiscences about Heseltine’s life and previously unexplored aspects of his stellar political career. But the main reason for Heseltine taking up his pen again has been to look back on the fundamental changes he was able to mastermind while in government and to set out the policies that are urgently needed to unite the country by driving growth, increasing prosperity and restoring hope. He combines this with new revelations about the seismic Westland scandal, the establishment cover-up that caused him to resign from Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, and a damning assessment of what he considers the grievous act of self-harm inflicted on Britain by Brexit.

This extraordinary new memoir offers an urgent agenda to rebuild Britain from one of our last great statesmen, who has been at the forefront of business and politics for the past sixty years.