VOTERS could be forgiven for thinking politicians are all the same when it comes to their choices at the next general election.

They will have to be eagle-eyed when they fill in their ballot papers next year, after it was revealed two of their options in West Derby will be called Twigg and Twigger.

The Liberal Democrats have chosen Knotty Ash councillor Paul Twigger to stand against former Labour minister Stephen Twigg in a seat currently held by Bob Wareing.

But, while the Lib-Dems last night insisted their choice had nothing to do with the similarity of the two names, they admitted their Labour adversaries were not slow to pick up on the issue or accuse them of electoral dirty tricks.

Cllr Twigger said there was no truth to the claims, but admitted if any votes did come his way in error, he “could not complain”.

He said: “Stephen Twigg mentioned this to me some time ago when he asked if I was thinking about putting my name down, although at that stage I was not.

“He said it would be funny if both our names were on the ballot paper.

“A Labour person who shall remain nameless had a bit of a go at me and said ‘you’ve clearly got together with [council leader] Warren Bradley and found someone with a similar name’, but it was not that, it was a completely personal choice.”

The issue of rival political parties promoting candidates with similar names has caused controversy before.

In 2005, an academic alleged a number of voters in that year’s fight for the Manchester Withington constituency had mistakenly voted for Tory candidate Karen Bradley instead of sitting MP Keith Bradley, who went on to lose.

Cllr Twigger, who became a councillor for Knotty Ash in 2007 before becoming chief whip last year and executive member for corporate performance this year, added: “Quite often, no-one gets my name right, but although I think there will be some confusion, I think the electorate are intelligent enough to get the difference.”