Exclusive – Jacqui Smith reveals who she thinks will win Strictly Come Dancing

The former Labour MP was the first celebrity to be voted out of the current series of the competition, after falling into the bottom two on the Strictly Come Dancing leaderboard with Made In Chelsea's Jamie Laing.

Paired up with Strictly favourite Anton Du Beke, she performed her Samba once again in the dance off, but it wasn't quite strong enough for the judges to save her from elimination.

In an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, Smith discussed which of the remaining contestants she thinks has the best chance of winning top prize.

She said: "The two outstanding dancers at the moment I think are Maisie [Smith] and HRVY and they both work enormously hard and are just lovely people and they deserve to be as good as they are.

"But I think what’s interesting about Strictly is that sometimes you see people who catch the public imagination and who really improve over the weeks, so there could be others who really come on and people really like them.

"So that’s the joy of Strictly: you can never be sure who will end up winning."

With that in mind, Smith went on to say comedian Bill Bailey could be the dark horse of this year's competition, standing out as an early crowd-pleaser on social media.

"He’s such good fun," she added. "And actually he’d obviously really improved from the first week to the second week in terms of the quality of his dancing as well. That’s what I mean about the types of people who catch the public’s attention."

Bailey's week one score for his Cha Cha Cha was a modest 15, but he stepped up to the next level in week two, earning an impressive 24 points for his Quickstep.

Following Smith's elimination from the competition, some fans have been calling for Anton Du Beke to return to this year's show as a guest judge in Bruno Tonioli's absence.

Additional reporting by Grace Henry.

Strictly Come Dancing continues at this Saturday at 7:25pm on BBC One. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide, or take a look at our new TV shows 2020 page to find out what's airing this autumn and beyond.