The pay-off line:

Serious point here is it seems like Tice might be giving up on full DOGE audits of internal council data (which were the original aim back in the summer), amid legal hurdles

He told me a data-sharing agreement isn't “the biggest thing” and “there’s other ways we can get data"

Farage’s decision seems to be a long way off, but the fact he is even able to consider this so openly shows how much capital Reform seems to have right now.

Tice told me: “Everything’s up for review, because nothing’s affordable if we keep spending more than we’re earning.”

It’s part of a deep dive by me on the million-dollar question: what will happen if Reform UK promises to scrap the state pension triple lock?

Would Labour and the Tories ditch it too, or (… more likely) start a virulent attack campaign?

Tice wouldn’t be drawn yet on what might replace defined benefit pensions — saying it can’t be answered in a week or a month

But this could be a big fight with Whitehall. These (typically more generous) schemes covered 82 percent of public sector workers in 2021

There is also a strategy to pin the failings on Tories and Farage

But there is tension over how nuanced this messaging should be.

Slagging off Brexit is Labour's old comfort zone but says one official: "You can’t just go around blaming Brexit. It’s saying voters are wrong"

“Phase IV” is in fact the name of a 1970s cult horror film in which humanity is subjugated by a colony of hyper-intelligent ants

One Labour adviser: “I’m actually looking forward to that bit. I won’t have to think about all of this"

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

We’re in “Phase 2.” To some it’s already Phase 3, post the Mandelson/Rayner scandals.

So what next?

Well....

But backers of the PM say similar, in less strident terms

MPs have been extremely vocal to whips and No. 10 in private

One Labour adviser: “Everyone’s accepted May is the season finale … They are both that angry and that stupid.”

😬 Ultimately though — for many people — it comes back to the question about the overall project

Neal Lawson of the new Mainstream group (who is definitely no friend of Starmer!) puts it thus: “The underlying foundations of this project are so weak that it endangers the future of the Labour Party.”

💣 The big dangers ahead are the budget (Nov. 26) and elections (May 7)

But also watch out for the e-book of Paul Holden’s “The Fraud,” which is due out mid-October

Holden tells me it will have “considerably new information” on the Labour Together donations row... 👀

❓“Mission delivery” will be a big part, moved to No. 10 but still taking shape. I hear the “mission boards” — led by Cabinet ministers but widely derided — haven’t met since summer. Officials seem quiet on whether they’ve been formally scrapped.

☹️ And bubbling along quietly are ministers unhappy at the reshuffle

One adviser: “The whole thing was fucking bonkers. We have thrown the board up in the air and hoped all the pieces work out. Either it’s going to be chaos or it’s going to be brilliant.”

💰 Labour’s finances are in a “perfect storm”

Membership numbers slipping, donors hesitant post-election, and unions giving little beyond their affiliation fees

One person tells me the deficit is currently running at around £3 million

⚡️ Then there are the conference flashpoints — two-child limit and Gaza

PM has had breakfasts in No. 10 with MPs this week

One organizer: “I think they’ll just want a steady as you go conference with nothing unsettling them. You feel like that’s what Starmer wants all the time"

⏲️ Yet it has also been forced by events. Black MPs in particular were disappointed by the government’s response to nationalist protests over the summer, said one Labour adviser. “We ceded ground”

One Lab MP: “It feels like we’ve been in a defensive crouch all summer”

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 The “patriotic renewal” stuff Starmer said Friday is the heart of the message he wants to put across at conference

He said he will step up an “open fight now between Labour and Reform” — which he called a “battle for the soul of the country”

🖊️ Starmer spent three days in Labour HQ this week writing his speech

He is being helped by his close aides Alan Lockey and Stuart Ingham but it will show his “actual views,” says one person who works with the PM

No “Island of Strangers” this time…