The Mystery of Labour's Two-Ton U.K. Election Debacle Solved
- Stone cost about 8,000 pounds and was destroyed after election
- Mocked monolith was supposed to symbolize party's seriousness
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In the months since the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party suffered an unexpectedly crushing defeat at the hands of voters, a mystery has persisted: The fate of the stone slab used in one of the election campaign’s most ill-conceived stunts. It may now have been solved.
On May 2, the party’s then leader, Ed Miliband, stood in a car park in Hastings, on England’s south coast, and unveiled an eight-foot-six-inch limestone monolith, weighing two tons, with his six election pledges carved on it. The idea was that, if he won, the stone would be placed in the garden of 10 Downing Street, the prime minister’s official residence. It would, Miliband said, be “a reminder of our duty to keep Labour’s promises.”