Guido hears Downing Street Chief of Staff Liam Booth-Smith is doing his best to keep up morale at SpAd School, with Guido’s moles describing last week’s meeting as “more buoyant” than previous weeks – co-conspirators will recall Booth-Smith told pessimistic aides to quit immediately if they didn’t believe the Tories could win – and that he now has a “spring in his step” heading into conference. If there was any doubt, the gloves are finally off…

Having lost their erstwhile Director of Communications Amber de Botton last month, Number 10 are keen to find a new, bold approach going into the election year. Look no further than the Net Zero rollback last week. Booth-Smith was particularly impressed by Kemi Badenoch’s punchy interview with Sky News on that very topic. Apparently he described her entire media round performance as “magic“. They’ll need to cast a spell on voters next year after all…

Multiple sources described the new approach as the right call, though one did say “some soppy wets sat there with worried little faces“. Maybe they should have thrown in the towel when they had the chance…