Former Labour MP Ed Balls was the most fancied Strictly Come Dancing contestant of this year’s series, according to Twitter research.

The ex-shadow chancellor constantly wowed audiences with his hip-thrusting and even pony-dancing to internet hit Gangnam Style.

Ed was named as the show’s most popular contestant after being mentioned nearly 148,000 times on Twitter.

But the biggest shock, perhaps even more so than his longevity in the dance competition, was being crowned the most fancied male contestant.

The politician beat off competition from Danny Mac, Ore Oduba and Greg Rutherford to take the title. He received the highest number of winky face emoji on Twitter.

The research was conducted as part of the HTC Emoji Awards, which is researching how the British public use emoji to describe their favourite moments of 2016.

Ahead of this weekend’s final, actor Danny was the most popular of the three finalists on social media.

And despite it being head judge Len Goodman’s final series, he lost out to pantomime villain Craig Revel Horwood for the “most entertaining judge” title.