Mandarins make ready for the Tories Alex Barker Financial Times

It's Whitehall at "its most ruthless, unsentimental and neurotic",
says Alex Barker. With usual work suspended for the election
campaign, our mandarins are busily preparing themselves for a
possible Tory victory. This means not only clearing offices, but
subjecting staff to "a full re-education programme". An "edict"
has already gone out to senior civil servants instructing them
on correct Tory vocabulary. Should Cameron win, any mention
of "targets" will be banned; Whitehall will instead foster
"accountability". "Deliver)1" is also for the chop; Tory ministers
will "execute" or "implement". These transition plans have run
into trouble, though, over the issue of the internet. Departmental
websites were a Labour innovation, which makes them trickier to
"decontaminate". Should these sites be amended to delete past
press releases or relaunched from scratch? "If year zero is no
longer 1997, when should it be?" Trouble is, the Tories have
already pledged to freeze IT spending; that would leave them with
little choice but "to use Labour-era websites to trumpet their
accomplishments. Watch out for how long that IT freeze lasts."