VIDEO: Ed Balls dances Gangnam Style with schoolchildren ahead of Strictly tour in Leeds

But former MP Ed Balls had every one of Normanton Common Primary Academy’s pupils and staff on their feet performing the infamous Gangnam Style routine when he called in for a surprise visit this morning.

There were puzzled looks as the children made their way into the school hall for assembly, where they were introduced to Mr Balls’ wife Yvette Cooper, the MP for Normanton, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley.

But these soon turned into expressions of awe and excitement as she revealed the secret.

The self-confessed dad dancer Mr Balls made his entrance with dance partner Katya Jones and her husband, fellow strictly pro Neil Jones, to the theme tune of the popular BBC One television show.

Introducing himself as a former MP for Normanton and later Morley and Outwood, he told the youngsters: “Somehow, I’m not quite sure how, I ended up being on Strictly Come Dancing. We are doing the tour all round the country. It’s the last night tonight that we’re playing in Leeds Arena.

“We thought to ourselves how should we spend Friday morning? And we thought we would come and see all of you and see if we could get you to do a bit of dancing with us.”

He was then put through his paces as he demonstrated some of the moves Strictly viewers came to love.

And he even risked a repeat of a daredevil lift, which almost saw him drop Mrs Jones live on air, this time there were no mishaps.

Ms Cooper, the Mayor and Mayoress of Normanton, the academy’s teachers and eager pupils were then invited to take to their feet.

After a quick run through of the steps, the sound of Psy’s Gangnam Style filled the hall and there were stomping feet, clapping hands and smiles all around as the group re-enacted arguably the most-remembered dance of the 2016 series.

Mr Balls also invited questions from his young audience.

He was asked how he had felt when he was voted off the show.

He said: “By the time we got to week 10, there were some really good dancers and let’s be honest, I wasn’t quite as good as them.

“Katya was, but I wasn’t. And so it was probably the right time. I was okay.”

Asked if he had done much dancing before, he told the group he had danced many times in Normanton, before dancing with Katya.

Katya interrupted and said: “You arrived quite confident to training and then you find out, what you had done before wasn’t really dancing.”

He added: “My approach to dancing was if you moved everything, something might be in time, whereas actually the key to dancing is moving the right bits and not moving the other bits. That’s really hard.”

Strictly Come Dancing Live will take place at the First Direct Arena in Leeds from 7pm tonight.

Mr Balls will then continue touring with the show in Manchester, Liverpool, Wembley and London.