I think Jo's one of the strongest candidates, more so than Stella, but although she sold well tonight both her and Stella wanted to go for a waterskiing product, which would have been as bad as the other team's skiing choice.

I think the credit for this week's win has to go to Stuart Baggs with Jo doing well in the selling role. Stella on the other hand performed poorly.

Well yeah but the maths reflects the fact that when Joanna and Stella are on a team they tend to win. Obviously the amount of wins isn't necessarily related to how good a candidate is (most people would say Badger was much better than her record of winning suggested) but I don't think for all those tasks Stella has done everything and Joanna nothing, it's not backed up by any actual evidence. Another example would be the clothes task Joanna did a lot of selling on that task whilst Stella just stood in a window for a bit (from the edit we saw anyway).

Edit: If anyone can be accused of hanging on peoples coattails its Laura. All she does is stay with the PM and hang on his or her's every word so as to not go in the boardroom and when she's put in a different position she whines and bitches about it (this week excepted to be fair to her).

on the criminal record front - she got a Conditional Discharge for what she did - which is where magistrates' see that somebody has committed an act which is criminal BUT the circumstances are such that they decide that the perpetrator should not be punished for it - i.e. that the circumstances are such that it would be an injustice to punish and that the person deserves a very big benefit of the doubt. that suggests that although she may have lost control, the bench accepted that she was sorely provoked. provocation is not a defence, so she was 'guilty' but the bench decided that she was somewhat blameless. if she had been brought back to court for something similar, then the situation would have been reviewed - hence the 'conditional' nature of the discharge.

Suggesting Joanna's been riding Stella's coattails indicates to me I wouldn't have any confidence in your own business awareness at all! Furthermore, it says more (or in this case, less) about you than it does either Joanna or Stella. Totally fine that you don't like her but no need to make things up.

Also knocking one of her ideas just smacks of desperation as most seasoned business people understand it's better to have a dud idea every now and then than to have none at all.

I disagree with you, and agree with Eve3275: they should only be fired if they rail-roaded it through, and even then only if they are the PM with the authority to force it. Otherwise, the others are just as much at fault for failing to see that the idea is bad and/or allowing themselves to be rail-roaded.

However, in the skiing case, I'm not sure it was Jamie's idea in the sense of him coming up with it. The session on the ski-slope was probably set up in advance by the production crew, along with the session at the racing track and probably several others that we didn't see. Often the candidates are given a list of things to pick from. This is more or less necessary to ensure the the venue is available, they have permission to film, etc. So Jamie didn't so much have the idea as champion it, and he deserves criticism for failing to see the idea he was championing was bad.


Getting into a shouting match with Melissa doesn't make her wrong. As we saw later, Melissa was a pain and wouldn't do what she was told. Joanna didn't let Melissa walk all over her: good for Joanna. (Remember also that this was the first task where they were still figuring out their respective strengths. After one has observed Melissa for a while, one might find a better way of managing her.) The point remains: Joanna unified the team and led them to victory.


Again, she stands her ground. On that occasion the team had been poisoned by Laura's poor management. Joanna had had to put up with her ideas being dismissed for days; Laura created an environment in which you had to shout to be heard.


Even if most people thought that, I didn't. In my experience, "most people" are not especially perceptive. I could see that she came across as aggressive, but I could also see that it came from a good place, and that she had talent. Lord Sugar agreed with me, and fired Joy instead. Now many other people can see the potential we saw then, and accept it was right not to fire her.


I like Stella, but I don't see why you think she is so much stronger than Joanna. Stella won task 2 as PM, but only because Laura made the incredible mistake of rejecting the Boots deal. Given Laura's other mistakes it ought to have been easy for Stella, but she somehow contrived to nearly blow it.

I just read through Stella's BBC page, and there's not a whole lot there. Wore a bikini in task 2. Modelled in a shop window in task 5. Helped a model put on an octopus costume in task 6. It's not doing her any favours. On task 4 she sold 60 shower heads at the wrong price, so she's certainly capable of getting it wrong. For most of the series she's kept her head down.

Joanna has been more visible. She got criticised for being too aggressive with her opinions early on, but most of her opinions were right. She PMed to a win in task 1. She had the best idea on task 2. She sold well in task 3. She got praised for cold-calling skills in task 4. Was critical of the octopus in task 6. In task 7, she sold well again, but she was also first to identify the need for a child-friendly video, and bought the toy car - so she's not just good at selling, but understands the strategy of it.

Given their respective visibility and achievements, isn't it just as fair to say Stella is riding Joanna's coattails? (Apart from that aberration in task 2 caused by Joanna having a terrible PM.)

There's also something of a double standard at work here.

Women who are assertive get labeled 'aggressive' a lot more easily than the men.

I also have a very strong suspicion that when it comes to women, male viewers don't have a a lot of time for those they don't find attractive. This seems to be born out by the plethora of very negative posts that are made here targeting women - far more than target men.

I think there's definitely a grain of truth in this. How dare a woman be assertive and not attractive? (not that I don't think Joanna is attractive but she's not a board favourite) In the celebrity world too, women who aren't considered attractive tend to get mauled (Sarah Jessica Parker for example) whereas men don't so much.

Personally, I didn´t find Kate attractive, but I do think that she did a good job in Series 5 (apart from being bit of a robot).



I think that you will find that most posts targeting the female candidates are from women themselves Personally, I think that the 3 strongest candidates are women (no, not Laura ).

As for Joanna, I must have been watching another series then the rest of you in this thread and most things in her favour where not in my edit of the show

She is a decent candidate, but some of these points are speculation (as this is not shown in the main show).

In what way? Everyone arguing in favour of Joanna has given actual examples that happened on the show (now you may not agree with how those examples are interpreted, but they all definitely happened). You've just decided that Joanna is riding on Stella's coattails based on no evidence whatsoever. Give me an actual example of this happening (other than Week 1, and even then Joanna's decision to go gourmet was just as crucial as Stella and Liz's efforts to keep on top of the costs) and I might take your point seriously.

Basically yes, we are watching a different show.

Nope. I've been keeping tabs and most of the 'anti-women candidate posts' come from men.

Quite.

In the edit I've been watching she seems very level headed and sensible.

But then again, in the edit I watch, I don't see anything that warrants the level of opprobrium directed at Laura.

Yes, she's made a couple of mistakes (as have most of the candidates) but the level of antagonism directed at her seems way over the top to me.

I think what many people, including me, find frustrating about Laura is that she often makes sense but ruins it all by whining thus fails to get her points across effectively. People hate whiners.

I think a lot of that is down to her awful performance as project manager in week 2 (where lets be honest she should of gone). She was up there with Rory 'I AM YOUR BOSS' Laing, Paul 'I want to sell cheese to the french' Callaghan and Jenny 'it was like having to breast feed you' Celerier as far as managerial talent goes. And she just hasn't done enough in the weeks after that to change people's opinions.

I'll admit that I don't like Laura but it annoys me that people use Stubaggs' age to excuse some of his behaviour and not Laura's (and I actually think Laura is far more likely to improve with age, her problem is she can't deal with pressure in a positive way, something she'll gain with maturity, Stubaggs is just a prat).

Agreed. Laura's problem is that she does have some good points, but she isn't able to push them through or carry them out practically. As a result, whenever she speaks up, she comes across as whinging, and often when she does speak up it's really too late to do anything anyway. That was also why she was a weak PM. I had a previous thread on this in which I called her "whining" problem "the Lucinda syndrome".

Joanna on the other hand, seems to be able to get people to listen to her. She managed it on this task anyway - she was able to push through her idea to direct the vid at children and use the pedalcar for the shots. That works in her favour. Laura doesn't have that quality unfortunately.

This sound like the Lucinda syndrome.

The rest of the competitors decide, consciously or not, to ignore someone and then that person comes across as a whiner.

Without knowing how the things been edited it's really impossible to tell whether the amount of complaints we've seen from Laura is representative or whether they've been highlighted or played down.

I compared her to Lucinda as well but Lucinda was actually a very good PM, Lucinda's problem is that she clearly had no clue what the apprentice would actually entail when entered. It's not that she wasn't good or talented, it's just she was rubbish at adapting, as soon as she was given a job she had little knowledge of she fell to pieces, that's why people didn't take her seriously (that and the fact they were mostly a bunch of nasty, talentless idiots that year so it suited the other candidates to just ignore her). I'd say Laura is actually probably more like Lorraine (although Lorraine was more of an arguer than a moaner).

People honestly need to decide if men find the females sexy on this show or hate their guts (you can´t have both) :yawn:

The irony is certainly not lost on me

By the way, if my comments are added to that total it is kinda odd, as I am saying that the top 3 candidates this series are all women

I don't think that's actually true.

It's quite possible for someone to lust after another but not like the idea of women in business.

For me it started in the second task where she was a terrible PM, who turned a winning team into a mess. I blame her for that.

Then in task 4, selling to trade, she complained about other people jumping into her pitches. Fair enough. And then she not only jumped into someone else's pitch, she demanded a percentage of the sales as a reward! And she had a big strop about it just outside the shop. Unbelievable.

Task 6, she happily accepted a role on the radio advert, and then whinged about it, and then whinged about not getting the pitch. She was really negative and angry, and although she may have had some good points, she failed totally at the people skill of getting herself heard.

On task 7 there was that scene where they were voting on whether to shoot the water skiing, and she wasn't paying attention and has to be poked, and then she half-raises her hand and Stuart has to ask if that's a vote for water skiing, so she raises it fully and says its a vote for police chase. She was exasperating.

She does have some ability, but she also seems so difficult to work with that I'd rather not have her on my team. She's one of the weakest left now. I had far more vitriol for Melissa and Paloma, but they're gone.

I notice the female candidates a lot more than the male, and I pay most attention to the more attractive ones, so I tend to have stronger opinions about them. However, whether that opinion is pro or anti does not, I think, depend on their attractiveness.

I could give examples, but I won't, as I prefer not to comment on individual candidate's physical appearance. It's not what the show should be about.

Here is a perfect example of something being unfairly spun to the detriment of a candidate to whom a poster has taken a dislike.

Laura was demanding a percentage of the sale because Paloma was (without any authority to do so) effectively destroying a deal that Laura had already closed.

Trying to make out that there was something wrong with her standing up for her rights in a competitive task is outright bizarre!


Yet more unfair spin. She accepted the radio task and, when it became clear that it was going to take far less time than had been anticipated she wanted some more work to do.

I can just imagine the field day her detractors would have had if she'd just taken it easy for the rest of the day.


Yet more spin!

She raised her hand and Stuart, being a complete prat, decided that he wanted it raised right up in th air. Completely pointless and just him being grotesquely patronising and dictatorial.

That you actually managed to find fault with Laura over that scene tells us a lot about just how entrenched your dislike of her has become - to the point that you were blinded to the appalling behaviour of the PM and only saw what you wanted to see to castigate Laura.

What did you think her game plan was?

To go into the boardroom and tell AS that as she hadn't raised her hand right above her head that should be counted as a statement that she didn't agree with the choice of event? Get real.

This defense of Laura is very endearing, but the girl has not done much (good) yet, has she? Even in this week´s task, she was shown to rip off customers.

It does not help her cause that she is easily the weakest candidate left (yeah, even behind StuBaggs).

If you want to attack a candidate then you should attack them for what they have done wrong, not things that are made up or based upon inaccuracies.


You see, more spin.

The PM decided to raise the price and the rest of the team went along with it. Certainly that included Laura but there is no legitimate reason to single her out.


That is an opinion, not a fact.

She came up with Book Eze when no one else would put forward any ideas at all. As for Stella, she plonked herself in a window of a shop and waved at people during one of the tasks. A woman with business acumen would know this was a useless ploy. Joanna has been my fave from day one, if you re-watch the female team argument ep, you will find the problem in the team was Paloma and her attitude further on in the board room when she was fired proved that. Paloma was trying to ridicule Joanna and thats why she raised her voice but they all shouted more because Paloma tended to bring that out in people. As soon as she had departed harmony was restored.

The second deal, for which Laura demanded a percentage, was formally Paloma's. Laura either should have kept her mouth shut and let Paloma make it (or screw it up), or else help on the understanding - which Laura had earlier insisted on - that the credit would still be Paloma's. Part of the point here is that she was being inconsistent with her position on the previous deal, when it was formally Laura's and Paloma butted in.

You may be thinking of the first deal when I'm referring to the second one? I agree about the first deal: Paloma was wrong to get out her order book and Laura right to complain about it. But having, on the back of that, insisted that they not interfere with each other's deals, she was wrong to then interfere with Paloma's.


That's positive spin. Asking for more work was fine; being a pain about it wasn't.


Did you even watch it? She half-raised it in an vague, ambiguous way; in the context of her not paying attention it wasn't at all clear what she meant, and Stuart was right to query it. And then she didn't seem to know what she meant by it herself. She should not have raised it at all, because they were voting for one thing and she wanted her vote on another.


I'm not at all a fan of Stuart, but on that occasion he was right. I can only suggest you watch it again - without rose-tinted glasses.

I'll allow it was a minor thing, which I wouldn't have brought up if you hadn't insisted. However, it was definitely a thing against her rather than against Stuart.


Game plan? I don't think she had one. She was just vague and woolly and not paying attention, and hence exasperating to work with. It wasn't a cunning strategy.

For what it's worth, I don't think Laura is dishonest or malicious. That's one reason I prefer her to Paloma.


Don't roll your eyes at me over a fantasy which is your own invention.