A local newspaper website has come up with an innovative way of covering the General Election – by getting readers to guess who their local candidates are.

Your Local Guardian, the online arm of the South London Guardian series, has set readers the task of identifying party candidates just from a headshot photograph via a quiz on the site.

Participants are given the name of the party and relevant constituency, and can then select one of 12 headshots on offer.

Once they correctly identify the candidate, they move on to the next question.

How the quiz looks on the Your Local Guardian website

The idea was conceived by Newsquest South London & Sussex group managing editor Andy Parkes, and set up by web editor Simon Bull.

Said Andy: “I was desperate for us to do something different around the election and thought this would work well.

“I’ve always felt I was an expert at looking at a particular candidate’s face and identifying which party they represent. I knew it was a winner when I asked the reporters to test it and they loved it.”

He added: “The thing is, a lot of people are switched off by political overload, so having some fun with a quiz like this might spark an interest with some folks who might otherwise not care – later we’ll publish the candidate’s names and details in a follow-up.