The Edstone: what the election’s worst work of art tells us about British politics | Jonathan Jones

If anything this was headstone for our collective stupidity, as Miliband was meeting our demand that politicians be static in a changing world

A few years ago archaeologists came up with a striking theory about Stonehenge. Drawing on comparisons with the culture of Madagascar, they speculated that Britain’s famous stone circle once had a symbolic relationship with nearby, recently discovered prehistoric wooden structures. Woodhenges were living places while Stonehenge was the place of the dead, goes the theory. When living wood turns symbolically to stone, it dies – it is frozen in immortal silence.

This interpretation of Stonehenge speaks to our association of stone with stillness, coldness, and the inorganic – in short, with death. And that in turn helps explain why Ed Miliband’s unveiling of a tall limestone plinth inscribed with six unbreakable election vows has been so widely mocked and excoriated.

Related: Ed Miliband's carved pledges could sink like a stone

And to think the Tories call Miliband a Marxist. All that is solid melts into air – that’s the truest thing Marx said

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