British Press on the Hunt for Labour Leader’s Missing ‘Ed Stone’

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/world/europe/british-press-hunt-labour-missing-ed-stone.html

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LONDON — The British press on Tuesday was hot on the trail of the “Ed Stone,” the much ridiculed stone tablet — more than eight feet high and weighing two tons — that Ed Miliband, the Labour Party leader, unveiled just before Thursday’s election.

The limestone monument, with six pledges to the electorate carved into it, was meant to show that Labour’s promises were “etched in stone,” and Mr. Miliband supposedly intended to erect it in the Downing Street garden if he took up residence there.

It immediately became an object of amazement and scorn, compared on social media (#EdStone) to a tombstone. It was called “the heaviest suicide note in history.”

Mr. Miliband lost the election badly and has gone to Ibiza for a vacation. Now the stone has disappeared, and no one in the headquarters of the Labour Party much wants to talk about it.

“It is perhaps the most tantalizing riddle to emerge from the general election,” the conservative Daily Telegraph wrote. The newspaper contacted more than 50 masonry firms across Britain, but so far has found nothing about the stone’s whereabouts.

The Daily Mail has offered a case of Champagne to any reader who has information that “leads to the discovery of the Ed Stone.” The Sun has set up a dedicated “Ed Stone hotline” for tips.

A Labour Party spokesman refused to divulge the whereabouts of the slab. “We’re not giving out that information, because that was before the election and we are now postelection,” he said.

The Times of London, another conservative daily, pondered in an editorial, “What should Labour now do with a certain slab of engraved masonry?” One suggestion was to embed a sword in it, and “whoever pulls it out gets to be the next leader of the Labour Party.” The paper also suggested giving it to Greece, in lieu of the Elgin marbles, which are Greek sculptures residing in the British Museum.

On social media, some Twitter users suggested that Mr. Miliband use the slab as a table for his second kitchen. And on eBay, mock listings have appeared “selling” broken fragments of the slab for as much as 100 pounds.

Even the type of stone that was used came under scrutiny. The Stone Federation of Great Britain suggested that it could have been Portland limestone from southern Dorset, but another stonemason claimed it might have been a cheaper, Portuguese version.

Much of the hunt and the ridicule surrounding the stone are being driven by the conservative news media, which was seen as critical to the Conservative victory.

But many Labour supporters and candidates were also harsh. John Mann, a Labour member of Parliament, told the BBC that the minute he saw the slab, “I just shrugged my shoulders; I couldn’t believe it.”