Sir Antony Jay CVO CBE has died.

He is best known for co-creating Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, and died peacefully on Sunday evening after a long illness, surrounded by his wife and family.

Co-author of the Yes Minister series with Jonathan Lynn, and of numerous best-selling books based on it, Jay started his career at the BBC in 1955. Joining the current affairs and documentary department, he was a founder member of the Tonight team, becoming Editor in 1962.

Born in London on 20th April 1930, Antony Jay's parents were actors Ernest Jay and Catherine Hay. He won a scholarship to the prestigious St Paul's school, before going on to Magdalene College, Cambridge, and was second lieutenant in the Royal Signals during his period of National Service in the early 1950s.

In 1964 he left the BBC to become an independent producer and writer. He wrote many documentary scripts, including the celebrated Royal Family of 1969, and two books which have become management classics, Management and Machiavelli (1967) and Corporation Man (1971).

It was when Jay began working with David Frost on The Frost Report that he turned his hand to comedy, and was introduced to Lynn by John Cleese. His other career achievements include acting as Editor of The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations and acting as a member of the Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting.

In 1988 Antony Jay was awarded the KBE - Knight Bachelor - in recognition of his career, primarily as former producer of the Queen's Christmas Message.

Jay, alongside John Cleese and two other television colleagues, founded Video Arts, a highly successful company producing management and training films for the workplace. The company was sold in 1989 for a reported £44 million.

Antony Jay continued to pen books and articles in the intervening years, and was an outspoken critic of increasing institutional left-wing bias at the BBC. He and Lynn have reunited at a number of points in recent years to pen new works in the Yes Minister vein, including topical newspaper articles, a highly successful live stage play, and a new adaptation thereof, Yes, Prime Minster, for Gold.

British Comedy Guide understands that Gold had been keen to commission a second series of the 2013 revival, but that Jay was already too unwell to engage upon such a substantial piece of work. The pair's final collaboration was a Guardian article earlier this month, seeing Yes Minister's Sir Humphrey Appleby welcoming a new Brexit Minister to Government.

Sir Antony Jay CVO CBE is survived by his wife, Jill, and their four children.