Former Danish PM schools husband Labour MP Stephen Kinnock ahead of election night interview

Many men have cause to be grateful for wives that whisper a word of caution in their ear before they spout off - but few are lucky enough to be coached by a former Prime Minister of Denmark.

Millions of TV viewers saw how Labour MP Stephen Kinnock was stopped by wife Helle Thorning-Schmidt from making a gaffe on election night.

Last night, Twitter went wild as users commented on how Ms Thorning-Schmidt revealed her premier quality political antennae.

Mr Kinnock had agreed to give a string of live TV interviews just after the famous exit poll revealed that Jeremy Corbyn had done better than expected. The Labour MP, a bitter critic of his leader, was at risk of being humiliated ... until his spouse intervened.

Captured by his microphone as he waited to be interviewed, she was heard to demand in a whisper: “Why are you doing this now?”

Mr Kinnock mumbled: “Erm, I don’t know.” His wife pressed: “Why? What are you going to say?” Mr Kinnock asked her: “Do you think I should just wait?”

Ms Thorning-Schmidt urged him: “Yeah, you should wait. You don’t know anything. It looks like we’ve had a really good turnout here, which is amazing.”

She then coached him to talk about his high local turnout and not to mention Mr Corbyn at all. He obeyed, and quickly cancelled his other interviews. Ms Thorning-Schmidt was PM of Denmark from 2011 to 2015.

Twitter user Robert Oliver said: “Looks straight out of an episode of Borgen [a Danish political drama].”

The incident was captured in a BBC documentary, “Labour – The Summer That Changed Everything” which revealed how Mr Corbyn’s critics were wrong-footed by June’s result.