Ed Balls slumped to the bottom of the 'Strictly Come Dancing' scoreboard tonight (22.10.16) after he nearly dropped his partner Katya Jones.

Ed Balls

Ed Balls

The 49-year-old politician donned a rucksack and a new spray tan for his quickstep to 'Is This The Way To Amarillo' but even they couldn't disguise his lack of skills on the dancefloor after the over ambitious lift went wrong and judges Len Goodman, Darcey Bussell and Craig Revel Horwood gave him the lowest scores of the evening.

However, he won favour with viewers who flocked to Twitter to share their amusement.

One retweeted a clip of the performance and captioned it: "I'm sorry but every time I see it I have to retweet it. Oh @edballs I love you! (sic)"

Another said: "Don't like politicians in general but @edballs is actually likeable on @bbcstrictly like @GBTrainJourneys Michael Portillo outside politics.(sic)"

And one added: "He obviously doesn't know the way to Amarillo @edballs #Strictly (sic)"

Ore Oduba waltzed to the top of leaderboard for a second week running but was just one point ahead of Danny Mac, who was seemingly Len's favourite.

The veteran judge showered praise on the 28-year-old actor and described his romantic performance with partner Otile Mabuse to a slow version of Whitney Houston's 'How Will I Know' as "a very masculine Rumba."

Elsewhere, Anastacia thrived without her professional partner Brendan Cole, who was replaced by Gorka Marquez after he was struck down with a serious chest infection.

And Darcey gave special praise to Claudia Fragpane declaring her "a natural performer" after her energetic dance with AJ Pritchard to Candi Staton's 1976 hit 'Young Hearts Run Free'.

Meanwhile, the 'Strictly' curse hit again this week as six professionals were struck down by a mystery virus and it was announced earlier today that Laura Whitmore would not be performing due to an ankle injury.

The Irish beauty said she was "devastated" to miss out on dancing the foxtrot but was forced to take the advice of the show's medical team.

She wrote on Twitter: ""Absolutely Devastated... It was a decision taken out of my hands. If it was my choice, I'd be on the dance floor doing my jive with Gio. This was by far my favourite dance. We all train really hard. All of us dancing, have aches and pains and I didn't realise the severity of my injury until it was too late. I'm sorry to let you all down."

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