@ seanj
"I'd say "cross it at your peril, Labour Party", but it doesn't really matter any more, anything they attempt now will not wipe out the memory of 12 years of mismanagement, incompetence and outright criminality."
I'd be prepared to bet that the civil service (and especially the Home Office and the Cabinet Office) is preparing to do precisely that - to wipe the official memory of the worthlessness of its previous policies in order to get the new administration following the same *departmental* thinking. The way they'd do it is using the rules that are supposed to protect ministers from embarassment:
"An incoming Minister should not have access to any minutes or documents written by a predecessor of a different Party other than those which were published or put in the public domain by that predecessor; nor should he be told whether directly or by access to departmental papers which would tell him exactly what his predecessor had said. *Moreover, it may be equally important to withhold papers which show the advice given by officials to the previous Minister even though there may be no indication on them of his views.*"
[My *emphasis*]
(Directory of Civil Service Guidance, Volume 2, quoting, with approval, a parliamentary answer written for Margaret Thatcher by the Cabinet Office in 1980.)
There have already been very carefully balanced attacks by distinguished former civil servants on the use of special advisers by the current administration, which I'm glad to say the Tories have not fallen into the trap of endorsing.