SINGER Laura White helped switch-on the Christmas lights at Cheshire Oaks just one week after being controversially voted off The X Factor.

The 21-year-old, who lost a sing-off against Ruth Lorenzo on the ITV talent show, spoke exclusively to the Pioneer about the national outcry over her departure.

Laura, a favourite to win, thanked the 20,000-plus people who’d signed an Internet petition calling for her reinstatement, adding on-stage on Friday night: “Now let’s have an I Hate Louis Walsh petition” after the show judge who decided she should go.

- See the full interview with Laura, and with fellow X Factor finalists Scott Bruton and Ben Mills, and 2005 show winner Shayne Ward in Wednesday’s Ellesmere Port Pioneer.

- Check out this website later this week for a video of the Christmas lights switch-on itself.