BOOKIES are currently making Labour favourite to win four of Gwent’s parliamentary constituency seats in May’s General Election - with the Conservatives favourite in Monmouth and Independent Dai Davies tipped to win in Blaenau Gwent.

There are 36 declared candidates so far for Gwent ahead of the nomination process starting on Wednesday at 9am.

Candidates will then have less than a week to get their nominations in by the deadline of 4pm on April 20.

The latest odds by bookmaker Ladbrokes marks Labour out as favourites in four of the six Gwent seats with odds of 2/5 for Newport East, 8/11 in Newport West, 1/200 for Islwyn and 1/100 for Torfaen.

But the bookmaker chain has selected the Conservatives as the clear 1/100 front runner for the Monmouth seat with Labour at 16/1 and the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru both priced at 100/1.

Ladbrokes predicts the Newport West and Blaenau Gwent seats will both be close calls.

It expects a close contest for Newport West between Labour, priced at 8/11, and the Tories at evens, and also for the Blaenau Gwent seat between Independent candidate Dai Davies at 8/11 and Labour, at evens.

In Newport East, the Lib Dems are given 5/2 and the Conservatives 7/1 behind 2/5 priced Labour.

Torfaen has the highest number of declared candidates in Gwent with the Tories and Torfaen Independent Group both at 33/1 behind Labour.

The Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru, UKIP, the Green Party, Fred Wildgust and Libertarian have been priced at either 100/1 or 200/1 for this seat.

Plaid Cymru, who have declared candidates for all six seats, have been priced at 100/1 for each of them except for Islwyn where it has odds of 16/1.

BLOB The Argus will be asking all candidates for statements of up to 400 words each which we will be printing in a series of features in the week before the May 6 poll.