Museum offers the ‘Ed stone’ a home – with Michael Foot’s donkey jacket!
IT WAS mercilessly mocked before being quickly hidden away as a national embarrassment to the Labour Party.
But at long last, Ed Miliband’s infamous General Election ‘ Ed stone’ may have found a home – the museum which also houses Michael Foot’s notorious donkey jacket.
The People’s History Museum in Salford, which boasts of being the ‘national museum of democracy’, wants to add the 8ft monolith to its collection.
The museum already holds the socalled donkey jacket that ex-Labour leader Michael Foot wore to the 1981 Remembrance Day service at London’s Cenotaph – sparking one Labour colleague to say he looked like an ‘out-of-work navvy’.
Museum curator Chris Burgess said yesterday: ‘The People’s History Museum has made enquiries as to the whereabouts of the so-called Ed stone. If it were to be available, then the museum would consider giving it a home in our collection, subject of course to the practicalities of acquiring such an object.’
He was unable to confirm reports that museum trustees had first approached former Labour leader Mr Miliband shortly after the Election to see whether his ill-fated gimmick was available.
But Dr Burgess did reveal that, so far, his museum had been unable to discover the current location of the stone bearing Mr Miliband’s carved Election pledges.
The slab, which was apparently destined to sit in the Downing Street garden if Labour won, has not been seen in public since its launch a few days before the party’s crushing defeat in May.
Even the launch, in Hastings, sparked disbelief, with some local party members said to be convinced the giant block was actually made of polystyrene rather than stone.
After polling day, party chiefs were reported to be so embarrassed about the object that they arranged to have it smuggled into a South London warehouse to get it away from the prying eyes of the media.
Labour officials have since repeatedly batted away questions about the Ed stone by saying that they did not know where it was – despite calls from some MPs that it should be publicly broken up and sold off in chunks in imitation of the Berlin Wall.
But according to some reports, the Salford’s museum bid to offer the Ed stone a permanent home may have come too late.
Former Labour MP Tom Harris told The Mail on Sunday last month that it had been destroyed or ‘pummelled’ to guarantee it caused the party no further grief.
Even if the Ed stone still exists, hopes of seeing it displayed alongside Mr Foot’s jacket – which was actually an overcoat bought from Harrods – will probably be dashed.
Dr Burgess explained that at an estimated weight of 50 stone, the giant slab would simply be too heavy to take up to the museum’s second floor where the donkey jacket is on show.