Rachel Reeves has just concluded her conference speech, which was seemingly greeted with lukewarm enthusiasm from Labour delegates. One line in her speech raised Guido’s eyebrows to new hinterlands, promising that “every line in our manifesto… will be carefully costed and fully funded”. Labour’s already said that their energy bailout and 19p basic tax rate level would be funded by borrowing…

Immediately after the speech, Labour’s press office sent an announcement promising that “Labour will use revenue from the reversal in 45% rate of income tax to fund one of the biggest NHS workforce expansions in history”:

“A Labour government will double the number of medical school places from 7,500 to 15,000 to make sure that everyone who wants to train as a doctor in Britain can.

The move will be funded by reversing the scrapping of the 45% additional rate of income tax which the government announced on Friday.”

There’s just one awkward issue with this policy: Labour’s already said Kwasi’s abolition of the 45%  is uncosted borrowing. Using that borrowed cash towards NHS spending instead of a tax cut is not, as Reeves has just promised, “carefully costed and fully funded” – it’s exactly the same uncosted spending for a different purpose. Inconsistent opposition for opposition’s sake is very tedious…