I am so glad that she won it about time she won something on the show I hope she returns next series and has a good partner for once so she can really show off her skills as a choreographer

I was also delighted for Kristina and hope she has a decent run on Strictly next year.

Me too, she was great on the pro tour and her dance with Robin on the Xmas special was stunning. She always comes across as a lovely person too.

Was so pleased she got a chance to show off her amazing choreography, have met Kristina a couple of times and she is a total sweetheart .

I find the barrowman a bit much but it was lovely to see her win it, and he said lovely things at the end about her too.

It made a nice change for her to have a decent partner. Well done to them both.

Happy for Kristina but Vince was my winner.

Having Barrowman - a west end star - against the others was totally unfair. He is effectively a professional.

In my view - judging on a level playing field - Vince Cable deserved to win.

Snap.

I was a little disappointed in Barrowman. Considering he's got dance experience I was surprised at how clumpy he was in parts of the routine. Vince on the other-hand was a real surprise and Erin did a very good job with him.

I'm glad she won too. It's about time they gave her someone half decent. She's been there since 2008 now, and she still hasn't had any celebrity with any real dance talent.

I really hope next year, she and Katya get the strongest men. (I know Katya has gotten quite far in both her years, but she didn't exactly have contenders either)

He didn't look like it! I didn't rate his quickstep at all, although I'm happy that Kristina has finally had some success. I agree that Vince probably should have won - posture apart, it was the best dance.


Ola's never had anyone with true dance talent in 5 years on the show, yet she's won the competition. It's all about what the pro can do with what they're given. Yes, there are always going to be no-hopers, but look at what Ola did with Kenny Logan and Katya did with both Phil and Gavin! It's not about getting someone half-decent, it's about getting someone who's willing to work and who the pro dancer can work with. The dance talent isn't the be all and end all, the partnership matters too. Kristina's not the only one who I'm sure would relish the chance to choreograph for someone with true natural ability, and if we're going on length of time in the show she's not actually even first in the queue!

I wouldn't begrudge her getting someone good, but to say that she deserves someone like that automatically because she's been on the show since 2008 without getting anyone good isn't a great reason. She managed to get John Sergeant far, she could potentially win with someone who isn't the best dancer in the field, and the best dancer in the field next year might not be a good match for her personality, and therefore not form a winning partnership.

Is it true that Vince has been dancing for quite a while? Ringer!

Seriously though, Fern did the jive, which seems like quite a difficult dance to do for a complete beginner - it always trips a lot of people up on Strictly. The Foxtrot is supposed to be technically difficult, but the scores are always pretty high for it. If Vince has danced before, then it was hardly a fair contest.

I've started to think they should allocate partners in the fairest way to the celebs, rather than in the fairest way to the pros. Some of the pros just aren't good at teaching weaker or middling celebs, whilst others aren't as good at creating really exciting routines for the most natural dancers. The celebs only get one go at the show, and it's hardly fair on them if say a really natural latin dancer gets stuck with Anton just because it's his 'turn' to have a good dancer.

I suspect Kristina is someone who would work best with a natural dancer, so for that reason I hope she gets someone good if she comes back next year.

It's a lot to do with how a celeb goes down the public too - Goldie wasn't liked by the public enough whilst JS obviously was. It isn't Kristina's fault she has two celebs who weren't good and one who wasn't either good enough or popular enough to progress beyond the first week.

Yes, if I'd been in the audience, I'd probably have voted for one of the Vinces too (Cable or Simone, not sure which!).


Oh I dunno, I thought Kristina did incredibly well with John Sergeant. Her choreography was clever and entertaining.

I couldn't bear John Sergeant- I think he annoyed me more than Ann Widdicombe did- so I'm not the best judge of that!

On the whole though I don't like 'comedy' routines even when the celebs are that disadvantaged. I'd rather see them have a go at the dances than just making fun of them and playing up to the audience. That's a criticism of John rather than Kristina, but it means I find it hard to view her choreography that year in a particularly positive light.

My favourite choreography of Kristina's is the Sweet Charity routine she choreographed for the pros last year.

If it was deemed unfair to have people who have danced ballroom dances such as Foxtrot, Quickstep, Walzes etc then that would more or less eliminate any older celebs from taking part as in those days most people went to dances and at said dances such dances were the norm , most people learned to do at least a few basic versions of ballroom dances.

I would like to say that I'm not a ballroom dancer, so can't judge the technicalities of the dances, but why are people surprised that Vince Cable was good? He's been doing ballroom dancing for years. I came across an article in the Independent back in 2005 where it said " Vince Cable is looking forward to the Liberal Democrat conference this year in Blackpool ...Mr Cable, 63, is a keen ballroom dancer and the Tower Ballroom, where Reginald Dixon used to play, has one of the best sprung floors in the country...."

It wouldn't have surprised me if Cable had done the Foxtrot before (does anyone know?)

Both Barrowman & Cable had advantages over the other contestants, but to say that Cable should have won because he was more of a novice than Barrowman is erroneous.

Yes, Barrowman has danced on stage, but is not, as far as I know, a trained ballroom dancer, and had never done the quick step before.

I can't say I noticed Barrowman being 'clumpy', but then I don't have a trained eye for such things. If he was, maybe it was because he had 2 pulled groin muscles and a sore right knee!.(he tweeted about it later, but said he was 'still smiling'). I don't know if the other contestants acquired injuries or not (it wouldn't surprise me if Fern had acquired a bruise or two!)

I'm glad John and Kristina won. They really seemed to be enjoying themselves on the show.

That's just one of the realities of Strictly- people care about dance experience, but not enough to find out the facts! I remember in series five there was a phone-in on a radio show on the day of the final... this lady rang in and said she would be voting for Matt as Alesha had so much dance experience already. Which would be fine, except Matt went to stage school and Alesha didn't ever seem to dance when singing!

As a rule the men will get away with previous experience but the women won't. I guess JB is an exception as a lot of people find him annoying and want to see reasons not to like him! (Not that I'm saying people on here did that)

Vince Cable would have been at a huge advantage. He has taken medal tests in ballroom:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...eath-wife.html

Given that background, I would have expected Erin to not have to do much work on his footwork, but simply explain the choreography (how she was stringing the steps together) and to concentrate on his presentation, including his posture which could have been better.

John Barrowman would have had a slightly different advantage, in being used to the presentational aspects of dancing (I've seen him do stage dancing in Astaire style to Cole Porter type music) but maybe not the discipline behind the technique or the intricacies of the footwork, which many people would not have noticed anyway.

Personally I was most impressed with Fern. Yes the foot/legwork was not always very sharp, but I thought she showed promise and musicality, especially since I agree with J4Rose that it was not an easy routine.

That's interesting. I think Vince should have been given a Latin routine, but I doubt he would have agreed to that!

Fern was probably a total novice, and she had to dance on her own more than any of the other celebs. I don't think she did a bad job really. There have been some truly horrendous jives on Strictly over the years!

This would have been my dilemma, too

Hate to disillusion you - When professionals do well with people who are obviously non-dancers or joke contestants it is usually because the voting public are being ironic or women are fancying a hulk with two left feet - think Sergeant, Calzaghe, Logan, Widdicombe, Henson - it doesn't mean that the pro's are actually improving their charges skills very much.

I didn't realise anyone had an insight into the minds of every single voter. No-onew can say for sure why people vote. There will always be people voting for what they see as a joke contestant, but to say contestants don't improve that much is ridiculous. It's true of possibly one person (no prizes for guessing who), but even then I would concede she improved a bit from a starting point of no knowledge whatsoever.

People describe different things as 'improvement'. John did a passable waltz with Kristina that I'm sure he would not have managed week 1, Gavin did some ok ballroom that I would bet he couldn't do the first time he stepped into a training room with Katya and I would bet a considerable amount on Kenny not being able to do the American Smooth he did if he'd tried it in the first couple of weeks of the competition. It's insulting to the pros to say they're not improving their charges skills very much - the celebs start usually with no dance knowledge at all and they learn steps and technique, at however basic a level. That's still improvement.

I know it didn't have much dance content in it but I loved June & Vincent's routine. It played to her strengths with the storytelling and it was genuinely funny and entertaining - because the humour was in the story. (Which isn't something I felt about any of Ann Widdecombe's routines but I've never found slapstick funny.) It didn't deserve to win but it was very enjoyable.

Ronni was a bit Michelle Williams like and Vincent Cable's performance skills were a bit lacking but apart from that, I thought all the contestants did a fairly good job.