UKIP are betting favourites to win in just five seats at GE2015
The bookies make UKIP the favourite to win in just 5 seats at GE2015. See list pic.twitter.com/lJ3MlN9KRw
— Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) December 30, 2014
Given the way that the purples dominated the political narrative for a large part of 2014 it comes as something of a surprise to observe, as Antifrank does on his excellent blog, that UKIP is clear favourite in just five seats, all of them currently held by the Tories.
The constituencies are listed in the table above and clearly Douglas Carswell’s Clacton is by far the party’s best bet. I regard the 1/10 as as close to a near certainty as you are going to get at the net election.
Surprisingly his fellow MP and winner of the Rochester by-election, Mark Reckless, doesn’t make the list. He’s behind the Tories in the betting. I agree with AntiFrank that he is a good bet at 13/8. Because there are only two UKIP MPs he is going to get a fair bit of attention.
The reason why he’s not favourite is, I guess, the finding in the Lord Ashcroft by-election poll that the Tories would win there net May. I’m only partially convinced. The polling question, unlike the one for the by-election, did not refer to him by name which could have had an impact.