It looks as though Farage is going for South Thanet where the bookies give him a 44% chance
Could Labour be the best bet?
After the big news about Boris and GE2015 we now have further details about Nigel Farage’s intentions. It looks as though he is going for South Thanet – a seat that had been strongly tipped and where he has stood before. A selection meeting has been fixed for August 26th though it does look like a formality for the party leader.
The seat was won by the Tories in May 2010 by Laura Sandys who has since announced her intention of not standing again. This means that the blues won’t have a first time incumbency bonus.
The chart above shows the latest betting from PaddyPower and the findings of the latest Ashcroft poll on the seat.
Even now this is the most polled seat in the country and has seen four different polls over the past nine months.
The latest, from Lord Ashcroft, is featured in the chart and has UKIP ahead. It will be interesting to see how that changes with the Farage news.
The danger for Farage is that he could see anti-UKIP tactical voting though quite whether Tories would vote Labour or vice versa remains to be seen. Whatever both the Tories and Labour would dearly like to see him beaten.
This is a tight three way marginal which could be determined by how the 2010 LD vote splits. In 2010 the yellows got 15% and Ashcroft found that 27% would be voting LAB although more than a fifth have yet to make up their minds.
Maybe Labour is the best bet.