Stop calling us woke, lazy snowflakes, senior civil servant tells government

Dave Penman made his remarks ahead of the FDA’s annual conference. Photograph: Getty Images

The head of the union for senior civil servants has urged Rishi Sunak to stop letting ministers call officials “lazy, woke, inefficient, remainer snowflakes” or brand them “machiavellian geniuses” trying to unseat the government.

In comments released ahead of its annual conference, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, also accused the prime minister of treating civil servants like “second-class public-sector workers” after the government offered them a worse pay deal than teachers and health staff.