VOTERS will no doubt be forgiven for feeling slightly confused at this year's local election in Wordsley where the Labour candidate is a former Tory and the Conservative hopeful previously jumped ship from the Labour Party!

Labour's Kevin Billingham devoted 38 years to the Conservative Party before defecting in 2014 - while Tory candidate Kamran Razzaq was formerly a Labour supporter.

Mr Billingham was chairman of Dudley South Conservatives for many years but when his wife Cheryl, a Tory councillor at the time, was deselected from standing again as a local councillor - both headed for the Labour ranks.

The 61-year-old grandfather-of-two from Kingswinford has also since been made redundant from his job of 44 years as area manager of Dudley Council’s Green Care team based at Wordsley’s King George V Park which he blames on Tory government budget cuts.

Mr Billingham, who was selected in place of sitting councillor Derrick Hemingsley who was suspended by Labour in November pending the outcome of a police investigation, told the News he was "getting more and more despondent with how things were happening in the Conservative Party".

He added: “David Cameron and George Osborne seem totally out of touch with normal working people and they don’t understand the damage that’s being done and will be done – local government has never had to face the amount of cuts to funding that it currently is. It grieves me to see."

Mr Razzaq, a legal professional from Brockmoor who left Labour when it lurched to the left under Ed Milliband, naturally disagrees and said: "If Mr Billingham thinks the Labour Party are more in touch now under Jeremy Corbyn who wants to scrap Trident, scrap trade union laws and spend money the country hasn't got - then he`s clearly lost touch with reality.

The 28-year-old former Wordsley School student added: "The Conservatives have positioned themselves on the centre ground where elections are won whilst Labour under Corbyn are ever moving to the hard left where, as we know, elections are lost."

Meanwhile UKIP's candidate will be 36-year-old Wordsley mum-of-two and small business owner Kerry Lewis, who is also co-ordinator of Wordsley Street Watch and runs the local neighbourhood watch scheme.