No election campaign endgame is complete without a somewhat confected fuss over a supposed gaffe, and 2015 has duly delivered with the claim that the Labour MP Lucy Powell said the pledges on Ed Miliband’s stone tablet could be broken.
The fuss centred around what Powell, the Manchester Central MP who is also the vice-chair of Labour’s election campaign, said during a BBC Radio 5 Live interview on Tuesday about the six promises carved into the limestone slab which was unveiled by Miliband on Sunday.
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that the fact he’s carved them into stone means he’s absolutely, you know, not going to break them or anything like that.
It was, inevitably, picked up on Twitter, with the BBC’s Nick Robinson among the early people to question what Powell meant.
This cheered me up. @LucyMPowell on Edstone - fact promises "carved into stone" doesn't mean "absolutely not going to break them". Really?!!
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) May 5, 2015
However, the fuller context of Powell’s quotes made it clear that while she had somewhat mangled her phrasing on live radio, she was instead arguing that carving pledges into stone was not the only thing that gave them credibility:
The point we’ve been trying to make is that Ed Miliband, who’s been really clear about this throughout the campaign, he stands by his pledges and promises.
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that the fact he’s carved them into stone means he’s absolutely, you know, not going to break them or anything like that. He’s highlighting a point he’s been saying throughout this campaign – it was just another way of highlighting that.
Powell herself made this immediately clear in a series of tweets.
Honestly Tories and others desperately mis-quoting what I said. Anyone who heard the whole interview knows I said the opposite.
— Lucy Powell (@LucyMPowell) May 5, 2015
Inevitably, this was all in vain, with the Telegraph and Daily Mail swiftly reporting that Powell had admitted the promises could be broken.
