The next few days are vital – "one of the last moments to weave it all together – to look politically credible to the people Labour has lost", one senior figure reckons.
There have been huge fights inside government about the looming Spending Review.
As I write, the home secretary and deputy prime minister are both still in dispute with the mighty Treasury over the amount of cash they'll have to spend.
But the Treasury's already trying to convince the public the review is about significant investment.
On Wednesday Rachel Reeves boasted of funnelling billions more taxpayers' cash to big transport projects outside the wealthier south east of England, having tweaked the Treasury rules to do it.
