To be honest I have had Ben as the weakest candidate left ever since Noorul got kicked off. No surprise he has gone for me. I can't think of much positive he has done and can point to plenty of mistakes from being a rubbish PM, to championing that poor bingo wings idea to selling zero when Lorraine was PM. He got a better edit than normal tonight but still he has not performed that well over the course of the show.

He did come across far better on You're fired than he has on the show.

I agree. The only thing he was good at apart from hyping himself up, was the art of shifting blame to others and taking no responsibility whatsoever. I definitely wouldn't want him in my team.

I'm shocked that it took this long for him to be fired. It's about time.

I was shocked he went,thought Debra should have gone.
ive never liked him but on YF he came across as quite humble.
i think this is between Kate and Yasmina now.

I wouldn't actually mind a Kate and Yasmina final. I've always liked Kate and think she comes across as a calming force amongst the more fiery characters. Yasmina impressed me tonight, though have to admit it took me a while to warm to her.

That said, I'm glad that James survived another week, especially against Ben and Debra....the two boardroom sharks.

Well I'm annoyed he went before the interview program - I was really looking forward to Paul Kemsley tearing him a new A-hole

Shock exit, is that a serious title for the thread, only shock was the wooden horse didn't animate and deliver this pompous young prat to the dole queue.
The only thing he'd be using at Sandhurst is a toothbrush cleaning the bogs.

Next week should be good. Home shopping channel which is always amusing and very telling.

I had an inkling Ben's time was up, so I wasn't shocked by tonight's result.

I have to admit that I had no idea whatsoever who would have gone out of all three. For the first time throughout the whole show, I felt that SA was struggling on whom to fire tonight.

TOTALLY agree with you JTW..the final Two have to be K and Y..with Howard an honourable third.
was great to see James survive..a very nice man.

This week made two sales tasks in a row on which he sold exactly nothing. The editing made a decent job of covering for him (presumably setting up the transition for Debra to be Official Villain) but really this was a no-brainer. Especially as all the faults Debra made he made as well, and she got closer to sealing a task-winning deal than he did.

Oh and he lied in the boardroom. And his CV was clearly feeble in comparison to Debra and James'. And after 9 weeks there, for all his "learning and growth" he still hadn't learnt how to shave properly.

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Brutus from Julius Caesar.

Guess Ben missed the tide.

Good evening (can't keep our hands off each other ) Sid.

mwaah, mwaah - smooch, smooch.

Yeah, he came across fine and all it really was, as he said himself, was his age and inexperience that made him act like a bit of a prat on the show. I ended up liking him and, because of what he said about Debra, thinking she may not be as unpleasant as she's coming across either.

She couldn't manouvre on the price.

It was all about when he asked each of them what they could bring to his company.

Debra and James answered sensibily and drew on things they'd actually done, whereas Ben's was just complete waffle. SAS could see he had little of substance to offer compared to the other two.

That's true. He couldn't say one thing that he'd sold, which I'm sure was the magic word that SA was looking for.

Exactly. Ben and his verbiage...nothing beneath the surface, evidenced by his terrible track record.

James can win this, he is capable, we had an example tonight with the two horse riders trying to turn on him, he asked and double checked their choice on the phone in the car, point a gun at your head he said, those were prophetic words.
SA wasn't ever going to fire him tonight.

The two know it alls gambled and one lost.

Yes well spotted.

Sir Alan dos'nt miss much when it comes down to the nitty gritty.

I also think that James is capable. However, he seems to take stagefright in the boardroom.

When you see him out and about doing the tasks, he seems to do extremely well in articulating himself, but for some reason in the boardroom, he completely loses his nerve. And not against his candidates so much, but SA himself.

... He went on to say, "It's gonna be on the basis of what I've picked up and gleaned about you, about your temperament and nature..." Clearly he meant that this task was just one of the factors influencing his decision.


Absolutely not. The big fault was negotiating the price for the rocking horse. We don't see who's fault that is, but in the boardroom it's Ben who carries the can. It's quite possible that it was his mistake not getting a lower price. He's the one who defends the price they get. He even says there's no difference between £1500 and £1700.

Given that ben's PM stint was the worst except for Noorul's, it wasn't a surprise here, I'm sure it was a shock for ben though.

I think James is likeable rather than capable. No surprise that Ben went. At least Debra can look after herself in the boardroom. Ben should have been doomed as soon as he could not answer the question of what he could do as Sugar's apprentice. He just waffled and mentioned Sandhurst yet again.

Absolutely spot on. No way was James going to go tonight. The failure had nothing to do with the birthing pool. Even if they had got prams, the didn't have a good second product so would've had to completely outsell the other team and hope the others didn't sell many of their 2nd product. The choice of the rocking horse was at fault. Debra and Ben lied in the boardroom. They didn't want to sell anything else. James had to force them to name another product, but he would've been seriously undermining his team and shown zero confidence in them. He had to trust them, and they failed him. One of them had to go.

Debra atleast nearly made a sale, defended herself better in the boardroom and more than likely has better CV. Ben had to go.