During today’s interview with Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics, the issue of where Nigel Farage wants to stand at the next election cropped up again and for the first time he gave an answer “I want to fight a marginal” he declared. Now, there has been a lot of discussion in the past about what constitutes a marginal (with experts ranging in opinions from a 5% lead to a 20% lead), but my own personal thoughts are that a marginal is a seat with a lead of less than 10%, however as he added that he wanted to take votes from all parties, what he is really looking for is a three way marginal. Now these are even more difficult to define, so I have gone for seats where the top three parties are separated by less than 10% and so would like to present (for Mr. Farage’s consideration) a list of potential seats that he might like to contest (ranked by numerical majority at the last election):

Hampstead and Kilburn
Lab 33%, Lib Dem 33%, Con 31%, Green 1%, UKIP 1%, BNP 1%, Ind 0%
Labour majority of 42

Oldham East and Saddleworth
Lab 32%, Lib Dem 32%, Con 26%, BNP 6%, UKIP 4%, Christian 0%
Labour majority of 103

Norwich South
Lib Dem 29%, Lab 29%, Con 23%, Green 15%, UKIP 2%, BNP 1%, Worker’s Revolutionaries 0%
Liberal Democrat majority of 310

Bradford East
Lib Dem 34%, Lab 33%, Con 27%, BNP 5%, Ind 2%, National Front 1%
Liberal Democrat majority of 365

Derby North
Lab 33%, Con 32%, Lib Dem 28%, BNP 4%, UKIP 2%, Ind 1%, Pirate 0%
Labour majority of 613

Great Grimsby
Lab 33%, Con 31%, Lib Dem 22%, UKIP 6%, BNP 5%, Ind 3%, People’s National Democrats 1%
Labour majority of 714

Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport
Con 34%, Lab 32%, Lib Dem 25%, UKIP 7%, Green 2%, Ind 1%, Soc Lab 0%
Conservative majority of 1,149

Brighton, Pavilion
Green 31%, Lab 29%, Con 24%, Lib Dem 14%, UKIP 2%, Soc Lab 0%, Undead 0%, Ind 0%
Green majority of 1,252

Watford
Con 35%, Lib Dem 32%, Lab 27%, BNP 2%, UKIP 2%, Green 2%
Conservative majority of 1,425

Warrington South
Con 36%, Lab 33%, Lib Dem 28%, UKIP 3%, Green 1%
Conservative majority of 1,553

Northampton North
Con 34%, Lab 29%, Lib Dem 28%, BNP 3%, UKIP 3%, Green 1%, Ind 1%, Christian 0%
Conservative majority of 1,936

Birmingham, Hall Green
Lab 33%, Respect 25%, Lib Dem 25%, Con 15%, UKIP 2%, Ind 0%
Labour majority of 3,799

Colne Valley
Con 37%, Lib Dem 28%, Con 26%, BNP 3%, UKIP 2%, Green 2%, TUSC 1%
Conservative majority of 4,837

And as a lot of these constituencies have elections in May (which of course will be held on the same day as the Euros) I will revisit these suggestions after those local elections and see how well UKIP do in them compared with the 2010 local elections (when the wards contested in May were last contested)

Harry Hayfield