Labour’s Lucy Powell hits back over EdStone gaffe
Lucy Powell, Labour's election campaign vice chair, is struggling to fight off suggestions she made a serious blunder in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live.
Earlier today the senior Labour politician and Ed Miliband ally said the party's election pledges, which the Labour leader has literally carved into a slab of stone, may not be as rock solid as had been claimed.
"I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that [Ed Miliband has] carved them [his promises] into stone means, you know, means that he will absolutely, you know, not going to break them or anything like that," said Powell.
Unveiled over the weekend, the "EdStone" exploded all over social media, with some mocking the Labour leader's latest prop, which he has said he plans to install in the Downing Street garden.
Labour's opponents jumped on Powell's remarks with Tory party chairman Grant Shapps commenting:
Labour know Ed Miliband has no intention of keeping the promises he makes during the election campaign.
But Powell argues she was simply saying that carving Labour's policy in stone did not, in and of itself, mean they would not be broken. Instead, the stone was meant to explain that Ed Miliband stood by his promises.
Honestly Tories and others desperately mis-quoting what I said. Anyone who heard the whole interview knows I said the opposite.
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) May 5, 2015
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