The mood of this board seems to be that Matt has the judges sewn up and Beth won't be able to compete with his overinflated marks in the final.

Given that the public vote is what counts toward the winner, and Beth has definitely been scoring higher than Matt in certain weeks (though obviously we can't be sure about every week), I would have thought that if anyone had the competition sewn up from minute 1 it was Beth.

I'd also suggest that in SCD, everyone complained that Louis Smith had been grievously marked down compared to other favourites, and then - lo and behold! - his marks suddenly improved drastically in the final, giving him a runaway victory. What makes people think the producers aren't going in for equally cynical manipulation on Beth's part?

I for one will not be remotely surprised when Beth lifts the trophy next Sunday. In fact, I'd be a damn sight more surprised if it was Matt, whose routines I've enjoyed far more.

Finally, bear in mind I have form in these situations - I called Louis's victory weeks out, although I had money on Dani Harmer

Calling Louis' victory was easy though - he was the obvious winner from week 1 and by the final Kimberley + Denise (his main competition) had both shown sliht unpopularity by being bottom 2 and Dani went off the boil.

He was one of the most obvious winners for the series (i'm not saying that disgruntled as I wanted him to win)

As I would prefer beth to win I hope you're right & the fact she hasn't been in the skate off so far does look good for her.

However a nagging doubt for me is that whilst Strictly voters have form of sticking 2 fingers up to the judges from Goughie, Tom Chambers, Chris Hollins & Louis last year the DOI voters do seem to align with the judges far more towards the end of the competition.

Let's be honest DOI has never had a left field winner where for example the journey contestant (Donal) beats the stand out performer from week 1 (Ray). Bonnie topped the leaderboard in the final & most weeks but even there the judges did comment on her shortcomings on the skating side so I never got the impression they minded about her not winning whereas Matt's shortcomings are glossed over. Chris was the best of the series but Suzanne beat him on final night so they wer fine with that, Clare beat Kyran in the final on scores but Kyran was the best over the series & pulled out a good bolero as well. Series 4-6 the public voted for the top scorer & last year Matt & Jorgie were neck & neck throughout.

The interesting thing will be if Beth is cleaning up in the votes whether the judges will tone down the comments this week so as not to appear out of touch with the public or will they be chucking 10s at Matt with Beth getting 8s in a final attempt to 'guide' the viewers towards voting for Matt. In the past Strictly have been kinder with their scores & comments in the final most notably to Chris Hollins - and there was a much bigger gap between him & Ricky Whittle than there is between Beth & Matt.

The votes are problematic. They used to have a logic that a large percentage early on were anarchist and voted for the least good, and then, by the end, the people interested in what the show was actually about voted for the best one at it. There were twists - as journey stories overtook consistent ability, and females tended to have to be significantly better to beat a male bias in the vote. Recently though, you have a self destructive trend to remove anyone unusual early regardless (Pamela) , and then to go for a male option en masse at the end - usually with the judges leading the cheerleading for the stock male option and the many voters just doing as the judges tell them. Thats the pattern on recent SCD, Big Brother, X factor...... Jorgie actually beat Mathew with the judges in the final after Robin and Louie overpraising Mathew every week - but still got a third of the votes when the male bias kicked in last year.

This year is unreadable. Luke has lots of fellow boxers with big fanbases on twitter plus John Prescott (the boxing politician) telling people to vote for him - although they won't have watched a minute - and you just have to look at this year's sports personality vote to see what an organised sport support base can do for you against better competition. Beth hasn't got that much of an internet base and strangely hasn't built one up much over the show, but she's got the advantage of being more likeable and having Jason undermarking her. Matt has had a vote problem and doesn't come from Emmerdale, but has the judges clearly on his side - for no obvious reason connected with his entertainment value.

That was only by half a point though so pretty negligible really. Plus Jorgie topped the leaderboard a few weeks as well along the way. I really think the judges would have been happy with either winning last year - it just so happened that Matthew was the viewers choice.

I wanted Dani to win

Yes, but the point was that it was close in the final and the vote still went masively for Matt by 3 to 1. You can put some of that down to the female needing to be further ahead of a good male , the judges heaping praise on Mathew and going negative on Jorgie, the stupid attempt to make her do the headbanger exit no one has ever done, and the ITV/Emmerdale audience factor working for him . Robin going for the male skater so strongly hadn't really happened before 2010, Louie's marks were terribly biased that year, and Emmerdale contestants do seem to do remarkably well. Its not really possible to say though which factor is most important - but it was still a ridiculously big lvote ead over one of the better females ever in a compettion where the judges had her marginally ahead.