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Theresa May has admitted she should have met Grenfell Tower survivors sooner after the 2017 tragedy when she was prime minister.

The ex-premier, who is standing down from the House of Commons after 27 years, told a new ITV documentary she 'should have gone and met the victims'.

Mrs May also took ultimate responsibilty for the Windrush scandal, which saw more than 80 people wrongly deported despite living in Britain for decades.

She acknowledged there should have been a 'greater sense' of who might be caught up in the Home Office's 'hostile environment' policies when she was in charge.

The outgoing MP for Maidenhead described Donald Trump - who was in the White House when she was in No10 - as an 'unpredictable' president, adding that 'unpredictability is difficult to deal with'.

Theresa May has admitted she should have met Grenfell Tower survivors sooner after the 2017 tragedy when she was prime minister

The ex-premier, who is standing down from the House of Commons after 27 years, told a new ITV documentary she 'should have gone and met the victims'

Mrs May faced an outcry after she initially did not meet survivors of the Grenfell Tower blaze, which claimed 72 lives, in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy on 14 June 2017

Mrs May faced an outcry after she initially did not meet survivors of the Grenfell Tower blaze, which claimed 72 lives, during a visit in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy on 14 June 2017.

This was in sharp contrast to then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who greeted and hugged local residents the day after the fire.

Speaking during an ITV doumentary on her 2016-2019 premiership, Mrs May said: 'I should have gone and met victims. I recognise that.'

Her former chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, told 'Theresa May: The Accidental Prime Minister', which will air on ITV1 at 10.25pm tonight, that her team 'got that call badly wrong' in the wake of the 2017 snap general election.

He added: 'We served her very badly because it played on the perceptions that people already have from the election campaign, that she wasn't comfortable with that kind of face-to-face contact.'

Discussing those caught up in the Windrush scandal, which followed her hostile environment policies while home secretary, Mrs May said: 'Should we in the Home Office have had a greater sense of trying to identify whether there were other people, people who were going to get caught up in this way?

'I don't believe that question was ever asked. And that's what lay behind the problems.'

Asked if she was home secretary when this was the case, she said: 'I was. And as home secretary, you take responsibility.'

Mrs May, who served as David Cameron's home secretary between 2010 and 2016, also admitted that sending out vans with 'Go home or face arrest' written on them as part of a Home Office advertising campaign in 2013 targeting illegal immigrants was 'wrong'.

Ms May said: 'It was wrong, and we stopped it. We realised after a short period of time that we needed to stop that.'

During the documentary, directed by Sam Collyns, Mrs May recounted the time Mr Trump took her hand while they walked outside the White House in 2017.

She said: 'We literally were just walking along and he said, 'There's a little slope around the corner. Take care.'

'And I thought, well, it's fine. My heels are not that high. I'll be fine.

'And next thing I knew, he was holding my hand as we walked up, and of course, I wasn't able to reclaim my hand before we got the television cameras of the world upon us.'

Mr Barwell said the 'most disheartening conversation' with the former US president was over the 2018 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, adding: 'His initial reaction was, well, why should I do anything?'

During the ITV documentary, Mrs May recounted the time Donald Trump took her hand while they walked outside the White House in 2017

In the documentary, senior minister Penny Mordaunt said she was told that a key part of Mrs May's Brexit deal was already set in stone after being agreed with former German chancellor Angela Merkel before Cabinet went to Chequers in 2018 to discuss it.

Asked if she felt politically-damaging resignations from her Cabinet over Brexit were a betrayal, Mrs May said: 'Politics is politics. People had a different view.

'They, I think there were many Brexiteers who, not to put too fine a point on it, didn't like a Remainer being in charge of Brexit.'

Mrs May said comments made by her 2016 Conservative leadership election rival Dame Andrea Leadsom that being a mother made her a better candidate in comparison to the then-home secretary were 'unfortunate'.

Former chancellor Sir Sajid Javid told the documentary that Mrs May's 2017 election campaign, which attempted to highlight her 'strong and stable' leadership, was 'a total disaster from day one' – with the Conservatives ultimately losing their small overall majority at the polls.

Sir Sajid also gave an insight into Mrs May's possible thinking during the 2016 EU referendum campaign, which preceded her becoming PM.

He said: 'This might go horribly wrong for David Cameron. He might end up resigning. And then I'm going to go for the leadership.

'And if I stay out of it and sort of sit on the fence, then I might be a more appealing candidate to both sides.'

Amber Rudd, Mrs May's initial home secretary, said her reputation had been enhanced in comparison to the conduct of subsequent prime ministers.

Ms Rudd said: 'Given what's followed, her reputation is enhanced.

'I didn't know at the time that truth and decency wasn't always going to be part of a prime minister's make-up.'

Former home secretary Suella Braverman told the documentary: 'I think history will remember Theresa as a dedicated public servant – who was probably in the wrong job at the wrong time.'

• Theresa May: The Accidental Prime Minister is on ITV1 & ITVX at 10.25pm tonight.