How many seats will the Greens win at the general election?
Published:
Confident Greens eye 12 seats at next UK election https://t.co/5uvJ64cpeA
— The Guardian (@guardian) October 19, 2014
Until recently, most of us had been assuming that the Greens would have enough of a job holding on to their one seat in Brighton Pavilion. Perhaps an outside chance in Norwich South, but that was about it. Some good recent national opinion polls have led to speculation that they might do a bit better than that.
Let’s have a look at their chances in the 12 target seats mentioned in The Guardian, as indicated by the current constituency odds at Ladbrokes:
| Seat | Win 2010 | %Maj 2010 | Green Odds |
| Brighton Pavilion | Green | 2.4 | 10/11 |
| Norwich South | Lib-Dem | 0.7 | 6/1 |
| Bristol West | Lib-Dem | 20.5 | 10/1 |
| St Ives | Lib-Dem | 3.7 | 25/1 |
| Sheffield Central | Labour | 0.4 | 25/1 |
| Holborn & St Pancras | Labour | 18.2 | 25/1 |
| Liverpool Riverside | Labour | 36.5 | 25/1 |
| Solihull | Lib-Dem | 0.3 | 33/1 |
| York Central | Labour | 13.9 | 33/1 |
| Oxford East | Labour | 8.9 | 33/1 |
| Reading East | Conservative | 15.2 | 33/1 |
| Cambridge | Lib-Dem | 13.6 | 50/1 |
Bristol West came as a bit of a surprise to me when people started backing it at 100/1. Now 10/1, that would be a very expensive result for Ladbrokes. Perhaps not quite as bad as Brighton Pavilion in 2010, which was one of the biggest betting contests out of all 650 UK constituencies. Caroline Lucas only just scraped home back then, but the Greens had been backed in from 5/1.
Norwich South was their number two target at the last election, and there’s not reason why they couldn’t go close again in 2015. If, as expected, the Liberal Democrats are turfed out with a vastly reduced vote, the seat is very much up for grabs between Labour and the Greens. I’m starting to think 6/1 might be a big price there.
It looks like their other hopes are mostly seats with big student/university populations and classic Guardianista territory. It looks a big ask for them to actually win any of these, so we’re quoting 25/1 that the party wins six or more seats next May.
