Ed Balls poses with a 'pigeon' in bizarre Twitter picture

Labour have previously promised 'an owl for every man'

Labour promised an owl for every man.. but Balls appeared to pose with a pigeon (Getty Images)

It’s less than a week since Ed Miliband took a stand against "photo-op politics", yet on Monday his Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, posted a picture to Twitter that couldn’t help but raise eyebrows.

As other mothers cradled their babies at Stanley Children's centre, Balls appeared to be tenderly nursing a pigeon.

While some questioned the use of pictures in the wake of Miliband's speech, others were more baffled by his fowl baby. One tweeted "coo far and coo fast?"

After Labour's Twitter snafu where the party's press account accidentally promised every man an owl, some expressed disappointment that Balls had only been pictured with the humble urban pigeon, rather than the wise forest bird. Could this indicate that the electorate would soon suffer another broken promise?

Perhaps the most famous of all political Twitter snafus happened on this exact date in April 2011.

After attempting to search his own name on twitter, the shadow chancellor instead sent a tweet that simply said "Ed Balls". It has now been retweeted 29,190 times.