ASPIRING Dudley South politician Chris Kelly has lashed out at his opponents standing in the local elections, accusing them of Photoshop faking photographs for use in their election literature.

Mr Kelly, Parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives, has accused the Liberal Democrat team in Kingswinford North and Wall Heath of digitally altering a campaign picture on one of their leaflets showing local council candidate Lynn Boleyn on a bus bearing the route ‘Wall Heath to Russells Hall Hospital’.

But Dudley’s Lib Dem leader - councillor Dave Tyler - has hit back, calling Mr Kelly’s attack “typical Tory dirty tricks”.

He said: “It’s trivial. None of the Tories ever said anything about this photo when it appeared several months ago. “They’re embarrassed because they haven’t been doing anything to try and get the direct bus link back between Wall Heath and Russells Hall Hospital. We’re the only party striving to do that.”

Mr Kelly, however, has labelled it “a blatant attempt to mislead voters”.

He added: “This photo faking is just the kind of dishonest campaigning we have come to expect from a fringe party like the Liberal Democrats with just two councillors left in the whole borough of Dudley having lost their last councillor (also in Kingswinford North & Wall Heath) to the Conservatives at the last local elections in May 2008.

“Paul Woodall, the Conservative Party candidate for Kingswinford North and Wall Heath, has been fighting a positive campaign to unseat Cllr Lynn Boleyn and under no circumstances would he or I resort to misleading the electorate and Photoshop faking photographs.”

Mr Kelly says the Dudley South fake photo scandal follows a similar stunt pulled by Labour campaigners in Dudley North.

In Parliamentary candidate Ian Austin’s glossy campaign leaflet - St Thomas’s ward councillor Steve Waltho (who is also up for election this year) has been Photoshopped into a group shot featuring Mr Austin and his political comrades.

Mr Kelly said: “Cllr Waltho was not there and was digitally added after the photograph was taken in an attempt to mislead voters.

“This is simply not good enough from locally elected representatives in our borough like Labour's Ian Austin and cllr Waltho and the Liberal Democrats' cllr Boleyn, all of whom are asking the public to re-elect them in their respective constituency and wards on Thursday May 6.”

Cllr Waltho admitted the pic in question looked “slightly odd” - but added: “It’s a completely innocuous picture of Ian Austin’s team; we couldn’t all get together at the same time.

“Chris Kelly’s getting so desperate for a scapegoat.

“He really wants to be concentrating on political matters in Dudley South working for the public vote, if he wants to be a serious politician.”

Jon Bramall, Parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems in Dudley South, also added: “It sounds like a cheap shot at Lynn Boleyn who has been an effective councillor and who has held the council to account - and they don’t like that.

“We’re not pretending there is a route; we’re saying there isn’t one. Why he would want to highlight that is beyond me.”

The fakery row in Dudley comes just weeks after Labour’s Jim Murphy (the Scottish secretary) was lambasted in the national press for digitally enhancing a pic of himself at a students’ anti-BNP rally.