Red faces as Shropshire Conservatives publish photo of Australian charity on front of manifesto

The bizarre situation was uncovered by Ludlow Liberal Democrat Councillor Andy Boddington, who used a reverse image search on Google to find out where the picture had come from.

The leaflet has been distributed across the county as the Conservatives campaign ahead of next month's local elections.

Following Councillor Boddington's discovery Shropshire's Conservatives have issued an apology to the charity, Grow, which is based in Queensland, Australia, and have pledged not to distribute any more copies of the manifesto featuring the image.

The picture shows staff from Queensland and Tasmania and appears underneath a heading saying "10 reasons to vote Conservative".

Councillor Boddington said that after becoming suspicious about the picture he noticed an unusual can of drink in a woman's hand.

He said: "In one woman's hand is a can of Xero. As far as I can tell, we don't sell that in the UK. There were other niggling points about the image too. The Tories are good at photographs and this seemed more like a snapshot of a volunteer group than a political photo of supporters or activists."

The Ludlow North Councillor said he was surprised at the decision to use the picture.

He said: "I cannot believe any political party would use a photo from a charity without permission. It defies belief that the Conservatives decided to use an image of charity workers on the other side of the world, rather than of their own supporters.

"This is a real low in local politics. We all have different views on what needs to be done. But we should never walk away from being honest. By using a picture of hard-working mental health workers on the other side of the planet Shropshire Conservatives have brought local politics into serious disrepute. Our county deserves better than this."

A spokesman for the Conservatives, said: "We have contacted the charity and apologised.

"No further literature with the image on will be distributed."