Stop calling them Jams! PM rebukes civil service

THERESA May last night delivered a stinging rebuke to the civil service over its attitude to helping hard-working families.

Laying bare the frustrations of her first months in No10, she also criticised the Whitehall machine for trying to second-guess her.

The Prime Minister has told senior officials in the Treasury and other departments to make families who are ‘just about managing’ a priority.

To her irritation, the civil service nicknamed this group – earning between £18,000 and £21,000 – ‘the Jams’.

Mrs May told the Spectator magazine: ‘Honestly, I get a bit frustrated when the system wants to box everything in and produce an acronym that they can use. I’m talking about ordinary working people, for whom life is a bit of a struggle.

‘They may be holding down two or three jobs in order to make ends meet. In a job, but worried about job security. Owning a home, but worried about paying the mortgage ... you can’t just box them into a simple descriptor category.

‘I get frustrated when Whitehall tries to do that.’

She also criticised the civil service, headed by Sir Jeremy Heywood, for its robotic ways. She said there was ‘a tendency to try to interpret what they think you want, and to deliver that’.

Instead, it should be mandarins’ duty, she said, to speak their mind. Mrs May added: ‘From the officials’ point of view, what they owe to the minister, and what the minister expects, is the best possible advice.

‘Don’t try to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want your advice, I want the options. Then politicians make the decisions.’

In what could be seen as a dig at her predecessor, David Cameron, Mrs May vowed never to neglect the Tory grassroots. She said: ‘I’m only Prime Minister because I’m an MP, and I’m only an MP because the electorate in Maidenhead elect me.’

The Prime Minister also confirmed she had done away with the practice from the Cameron years of having the Chancellor attend the key 8.30am meeting in No 10.

She said: ‘I think one of the important differences is that the morning meetings are not about policy development but are about what I’m doing during the day. We do policy development in the cabinet sub-committees.

‘So I have reinstated what might be described as a more traditional way of doing government.’

Mrs May also made a pointed reference to the fact she is against protectionist trade policies – which US President-elect Donald Trump has been seen as wanting to implement.

She said: ‘I want the UK to be the global leader in free trade.’

Mrs May added that she would be attending the World Economic Forum next year to make this point, saying: ‘I think there genuinely is a real opportunity for us. We should be around the world, promoting that message of free trade. Seeing what we can do outside [the EU].’

In the same Christmas edition of the magazine, ex-chancellor and passionate Remainer George Osborne said he had reached a ‘truce’ with colleagues who voted to quit the EU.

He wrote of his ‘friend’ Michael Gove – although there was no mention of fellow Brexiteer Boris Johnson.

The MP for Tatton also confirmed he was writing his first book.

The Prime Minister yesterday said Islamic State’s days were ‘numbered’ as the last jihadis were forced out of the Libyan stronghold of Sirte.

Mrs May told Gulf leaders in Bahrain: ‘UK servicemen and women are putting their lives on the line at the heart of the international mission against [IS] ... we are making progress.’

Comment – Page 14

‘Don’t tell me what I want to hear’