Brilliant negotiation skills and some outside of the box thinking with the stories are what brought his team victory. He drove the five negotiated buys whilst Jamie brought in a paltry 2 which almost handed the win to the girls. Stuart was really just a passenger adding the odd stupid aside to Chris's insightful and ingenitive negotiations. In fact, his location of the wrong blue book was his biggest contribtion and put them back a couple of hours.

None of the girls were close to matching Chris's negotiations and at the end of the day that secured victory even with the penalties.

Well done Chris. A magnificent performance.

He makes me laugh.

Would have liked him more if it wasn't for his comments about Stella at the end. He practically spat out venom about her.

In fairness, it seemed a widely held view amongst the four still there at the time before the return of Liz and Stella. Stella does genuinally seem to rub people up the wrong way. I have backed her during the show for the disdain she shows the idiocy of Stuart but she seems a difficult personality to like and designed to wind people up.

I think it was Jamie really. I know he only got 2 items but he was on his own and the two deals he did was brilliant. And it was his strategy that meant Chris and Stuart did so well.

Jamie's advise at the beginning was pretty standard really, although obviously it looks alot better when Liz misses such an obviously important point herself and it was a important part in the win.

His negotiations were good but his productivity in only securing two was woeful. All he did was whine about the kitchen item he could not find. If that was so hard he should have decided to focus on the other two. The fines he built up would have cost them if the girls had not seen so bad at negotiating. In most circumstances, he would have gone tonight.

I wouldn't want to work with someone who lies so frequently and so easily. It wasn't necessary. No-one else did it. Jamie got good prices without lying to the vendors.

I reckon LAS will fire Jamie now the first chance he gets. As for Chris I'd love to see him win this.

Chris and Stuart were the only subteam to get all of their items and at a really good price.

He did what was necessary but it involved a lot of undignfied fibbing and begging.

He didn't really show any proper negotiation skills used in business. It was all a bit embarrassing really. Entertaining though. But he's no Joanna.

And also so unconvincingly. The nana story was hilarious.

The items Jamie got were at a good price, without his needing to lie. His failure to source some items doesn't have anything to do with his negotiation skills.

Chris did win the task for the boys. Jamie nearly lost it them. If Laura and Stella hadn't bought the truffles then at cost price +£50 they would have saved money. Add in the over spending on tartan and you'd have seen the girls winning and bye bye Jamie I think.

I hope chris wins this, it would be a suprise

He is threatened by her I, it makes him look rather desperate.

The press has been quiet about this lately, but at the beginning of the season, weren't there lots of stories in the papers from former workmates about Chris being a "fantasist" who'd blatantly lied on his CV, and had a record of lying at previous jobs? If that's the case, no wonder he took so well to telling these fairy stories in this task!

You are confusing him to Christopher Farrell. He was the one with all the negative stories with being fired on his job for viewing porn at work and currently on bail for fraud. Now, the alleged stories were that he was a wife beater and spun tales about his wife getting sick but the wife didn't know about it. (I don't know the complete story on what the papers printed to be honest).


As with regards to Chris Bates, the only story so far is that he and Laura dated after the filming but didn't last.

Do you really think that in the real world any seller would have gone along with Chris's obvious BS?

Most successful sellers would not have fallen for it and would have sent him packing "that's the final price, if you don't want it get lost".

His monotone drone would also have me annoyed from the first second.

As I mentioned on another thread, in no way were Chris's lies convincing or natural. He spoke in a monotone, his eyes darted from side to side nervously, and the stories were bungled and didn't even flow. He's a terrible liar!

It's obvious the taxi shop people knew it was an apprentice episode and found the whole thing hilarious as they knew the reason Chris needed the bluebook.

It was similar to Jamie's tikka - as Martin said on You're Fired, there's no way he would have got such a big discount on an ordinary day if he'd walked into that shop (without the cameras and Karren Brady).

Thanks for clarifying!

Chris' approach was successful as a one off on this task, but it would not be a good way to build a sustained business relationship. You would just stop dealing with someone who continued to throw hard luck stories at you.