Anyone hoping the Labour Party will offer a solution to the HS2 funding confusion will be disappointed. As the government appears to backtrack on building the northern leg of the high speed rail service, the question of what Labour would do differently has now produced three different answers from three Shadow ministers in just 48 hours. Almost as if they have no idea what they’d do either…

On Sunday, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden told Laura Kuenssberg he wants to “see what [it] costs” to build the Manchester leg, and Labour will “make those decisions when it comes to the manifesto“. The usual ‘wait and see’ fence-sitting Labour rely on…

Yet last night the party offered newfound clarity on the issue, with Shadow Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds declaring on BBC Radio 4 “We will build HS2 in full…to Manchester and the eastern leg to Leeds.” A massive commitment. The Manchester leg is one thing; the eastern leg to Leeds was scrapped in 2021…

This morning, however, Shadow Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq has immediately hit the brakes, telling Times Radio “maybe [Thomas-Symonds] knows something I don’t” about this multi-billion pound splurge, adding she herself would not commit to spending that much on a whim. So either a Shadow Treasury Minister doesn’t know about Labour’s latest spending plans, or Symonds went completely off the rails…