The judges on Britain's top TV talent shows are getting increasingly irritated by viewers who insist on phoning up and choosing the wrong winners.

So serious has the problem become that judges on Strictly Come Dancing appealed to viewers last night not to vote for the veteran BBC journalist John Sergeant, however much they may like him. "We're judging on the ability of dance," said the panellist Arlene Phillips. "It's very well that people fall in love with a man, but what his feet are doing isn't a foxtrot."

Both Strictly and its rival X Factor were hit by upsets this weekend as talented contestants were booted off before their time.

Sergeant, 64, and partner Kristina Rihanoff received just 12 points for their performance, which was not a foxtrot at all but a cha cha cha - although one judge joked that it was 'more Ha Ha Ha'.

But the housewives phoned in by the thousand to keep him in and in the end it was the former M People frontwoman Heather Small who was booted out after a dance-off with Rachel Stevens of S Club (7).

X Factor saw an even greater upset when the show lost Laura White, the 21-year-old Bolton songbird who had been tipped as a possible winner of the show.

White was voted off by judge Louis Walsh after a showdown with the Spaniard Ruth Lorenzo. Walsh's decision was seen as a tactical move to protect his boy band JLS and reportedly prompted a behind-the-scenes row with Cheryl Cole, who was mentoring the loser.

Cole, who found fame herself through Popstars: the Rivals, said that neither White nor Lorenzo should have been voted off. "The public has not been voting on talent, and that became clear tonight," she said on Saturday night's show. "I'm stunned both these girls were in the bottom two this week."

X Factor also has a housewives' favourite in Daniel Evans, the 38-year-old pool cleaner from Essex. In an uncharacteristically acute observation, Walsh told him he looked like "Ricky Gervais doing karaoke" but Evans had the female judges in tears when he dedicated a song to his late wife, who died last year after giving birth to a daughter.

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