Election 2015: Why 3 will be the magic number for Ukip in May
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Ladbrokes’ political odds compiler Matthew Shaddick carried out a comprehensive review of Ukip’s chances at the General Election in his latest ‘The Political Bookie’ blog post, after Racing Post pundit Matthew Engels tipped up the purples to win just one seat in May.
You can back said eventuality at 4/1 with Ladbrokes (from 9/2), making it the shortest-priced outcome in a 1-19 seat market, but this wager pretty much assumes that Ukip leader Nigel Farage won’t win Kent constituency South Thanet and make it to the House of Commons.
Tory turncoat Douglas Carswell is surely a lock to hang on in Clacton, after turning a 12,068 Conservative majority into a 12,404 Ukip majority in an October by-election triggered by his flight from David Cameron’s crowd.
That’s one seat taken care of, but Ukip also head the markets in South Thanet and Essex constituency Thurrock, and look well placed to take both.
Labour’s Polly Billington, Ed Miliband’s former special advisor, was fancied to land the latter prior to Ukip’s big surge in the build up to last year’s European Elections, where they topped the poll.
Purple MEP Tim Aker has claimed 4/6 favouritism since, pushing Billington out to 9/4 with incumbent Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price staring down the barrel of unemployment at 9/2.
Ukip have five members on Thurrock council, including Aker, which is a fair whack for a party with only 369 countrywide, and the former TaxPayers’ Alliance coordinator has been odds on for some time.
They look a decent bet to take it, which leaves Farage in South Thanet. Whatever the rhetoric coming from the media, and the candidate himself in recent Telegraph tales, it would be truly shocking if he didn’t win after all this fuss.
Ukip are 8/13 to win South Thanet, but 11/2 on Farage and co scooping up exactly three seats at the General Election could be the best way to make money out of the Europhobes this May.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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