Nigel Farage hints at another Tory defection to UKIP
Nigel Farage hints at another Tory defection to UKIP, who should you be betting on? http://t.co/0v2XsQ5Wga pic.twitter.com/Um7zgGX438
— TSE (@TSEofPB) March 1, 2015
Today it is being reported
Asked if he was in talks with Tory MPs about more defections, Mr Farage said: “The last time I spoke about this I said I would be surprised if there were not more.
“There is one conversation we are still having. But do you know what – it is not very relevant now. Last year it was a big deal.â€
The honourable precedent that Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless have created where defectors trigger a by-election won’t apply this close to the dissolution of Parliament, so I wonder this makes the potential defector is either
i) someone standing down in May or
ii) someone whose majority wasn’t of a sufficient magnitude to guarantee a UKIP victory but a victory of Labour or the Lib Dems in a by-election.
The latter would reinforce the Tory line of “Go to bed with Farage and wake up with Miliband” which the Tories are convinced will win them back some Con to UKIP defectors.
A few bookies have a market up on whom the next Tory MP will be to defect, it might be worth backing Chris Kelly at 21/1 and David Nuttall at 25/1, both fit at least one of  the above criteria, and in Chris Kelly’s case, both.