We continue our tour of the UK and constituencies with a trip to Somerset for a brand-new seat that the betting markets indicate is a three-way battle. Is that really the case and which of the three main parties should be considered the favourites?

It is time to take a closer look at the latest Frome & East Somerset Odds here at Betfred…

This is the first seat we’ve looked at in this series where it could realistically go any of three ways according to the betting. This new seat takes parts of North East Somerset and bits of Somerton & Frome to create the new boundaries and there is certainly reason for optimism for at least two of the candidates expected to be in the mix to be sent to the House of Commons. I'm certainly not convinced however that the market is correct and this is a three-horse race.

We’ll start with the betting favourite, Tory candidate and local councillor, Lucy Trimnell. At 5/4 as of the time of writing, our odds indicate that she has a 44% chance of being elected.

Based on the last General Election, this should be considered a relatively safe Conservative seat but in reality, those are few and far between considering their dire poll numbers and for her to be victorious, she’ll need the anti-Tory vote to split relatively evenly across her main opposition.

What I’ve found interesting is looking at her social media and seeing that she’s clearly focusing all of her attention on the Labour Party. There are plenty of tweets about how they’ll be raiding pension pots and praising the widely-panned National Service policy. There is even a bizarre post about how much better a Conservative Christmas tree is.

I don’t get it either but her whole shtick seems to be, Tories are good, Labour are not and what she would actually do for residents in the constituency doesn’t seem to be of utmost importance if you were just reading her Twitter posts. I’m not too sure she’s got her tactics right however.

Labour have put forward their local council group leader as their candidate and it would be fair to say that Robin Moss isn’t exactly lighting it up in the social media world. His last tweet that wasn’t a retweet was all the way back in March 2023. Despite being a 2/1 (33% chance) bet according to the market, this is a red herring based solely upon national polling.

If Labour are genuine contenders in seats like these, then it is going to be one almighty landslide victory and Sir Keir Starmer will have the majority of all majorities. The Red Rose Party traditionally have not been the main anti-Tory option for voters in this region.

Bath to the north voted for a Lib Dem MP in 2019 and Somerton & Frome (of which part of this new seat is made up of) elected an MP from the same party in a by-election just last year with a majority of over 10,000, with Labour being pushed down into fifth place as the tactical vote was clear for all to see.

This means that logically, that coalition of voters who are looking to get rid of the party of government will coalesce around the Lib Dems, who at 9/4 (31% chance) are undoubtedly a value play here. I would not be surprised at all if they leapfrog Labour into second-spot in the market and even tussle with the Tories for favouritism in the near future.

I took the mick a bit out of the Labour candidate for his dire use of social media, so it would be remiss of me to ignore the fact that the Lib Dem candidate, Anna Sabine, doesn’t seem to have an active public profile. This is certainly not the be all and end all but it isn’t ideal in this day and age, knowing that many an undecided voter will Google the names of the candidates to get some background.

That aside, the reason I like the value for Sir Ed Davey’s party here is really strong council results in 2022 and 2023 along with that very strong that by-election win last year.

Somerset used to be a Lib Dem stronghold before the coalition but that resentment seems to have receded somewhat and with Labour’s lack of support locally, it should open the door for the Anti-Tory vote to really rally around one candidate instead of splitting it in multiple directions.

A win here coupled with retaining Bath and the newly-formed Glastonbury & Somerton seat are very much a realistic target for the party. If you throw in taking Sir Paddy Ashdown’s old seat of Yeovil back, July 4 could be a very good day for the Lib Dems in this part of the country.

We’ll cover this ongoing story from now through to General Election day itself from our team here at Betfred Insights. Keep checking out our coverage from the Next Prime Minister markets through to key individual constituencies over the coming weeks as we follow the twists and turns from a betting perspective for the 2024 General Election in our Politics Betting Tips section.