We all know the Lord works in mysterious ways so I thought now that the series is over and we're all bored this could be a thread were we list everytime Sugar has contradicted himself throughout the show. I'll start:

1. Sugar fires Paloma for personally attacking her fellow contestants but has no problem keeping on Katie whose attack on Adam was a hundred times worse, even suggesting he had a drinking problem

2. Sugar gets angry with Stuart for lying on his CV and fires him. Yet he eventually hired Lee who also lied on his CV.

3. In the lead up to firing Lucinda Sugar kept on saying 'you can't argue with the facts' but the facts were that Lucinda had the best record of all the candidates remaining, so apparently you can argue with the facts

I'm sure we can make this a pretty long list

I certainly can't disagree with 1 and 2. However, maybe Lord Sugar learnt from his experience with Katie and is more "on the lookout" for characters like her now.

I'm sure the difference in quality and characters between the two candidates don't make it quite a hypocrisy, but I was always amused by him telling Jadine that she was fired because he couldn't be arsed to train her up properly, then hiring Simon Ambrose because he was so excited at the prospect of training his shiny newness up into something special, rather than going with the leathery battered old handbag that was Kristina.

I'd love to know for at what point in each series Sugar decided to hire the winner. I think he probably has a good idea at who it is at least halfway into the series.

Wasn't Jadine fired essentially because she was missing her little girl so badly that she couldn't really focus?

There's also the complex minefield of when it matters what you do to some supplier, customer or fellow business. Even this series we had don't give the buyer compensation as you won't see him again, don't renegotiate as your name matters and it doesn't matter if the tour is rubbish once you have sold it. No wonder the candidates are confused which morality to follow.

Thats complicated by him saying the taste of the drink was the main thing one minute in the final task and then not a few minutes later, and the general confusion whether cheap inedible food (Bruschetta or Chocolates) are a good thing or not. The logic seems to be get the product to look wrong and no one will buy it, if it tastes bad after they buy it it doesn't matter -unless its the final where people are tasting first but it dosn't matter anyway - unless he wants a reason for you to lose.

I look at Stella's last job and her new one and I think is anyone else better qualified for this by age or experience?

I then wonder why its Stella who gets moved to run the male team in week 2. I then think, did Stella do anything else that well again? And, finally, I think what else does Lord sugar need to test after he's checked that his person with most managerial experience can manage a team of difficult men?

Kristina certainly wasn't battered or leathery. Time for a Specsavers visit, methinks. Personally I felt Kristina should have won that year. However LS stated that he wanted someone hungry and younger and not necessarily a solid track record. As it was Simon Ambrose turned out to be a good Apprentice staying with LS for nearly 3 years. This time LS went for the more dependable and steady employee. Perhaps he felt that he didn't want to be seen as taking an ageist attitude, as all other Apprentices winners so far had been on the youngish side.

I wholeheartedly agree. When the boys were telling lies about their old granny wanting a tartan wedding dress or whatever it was, I thought "hang on, that's not good business, that is totally one-off, you could never go back there!" Yet they were praised for it. Likewise, I baulked when LS told them "don't worry about the quality (of the tour) just sell the tickets!"

I sometimes wondered whether they were supposed to act like professional, trustworthy business people or like Del-boy's posh cousins.

I have also wondered that...he must do, I think lots of us have our minds set on at least two or three likely winners from the off, so I guess he does too.

Having said that, sometimes I have wondered whether he regards this as a mere sideline, it isn't that important to him at all. It's all good publicity for him and his companies, and I have wondered whether he wanders into that boardrom thinking "Oh sh*t, I have got to get my head around this rabble now - just when I need to concentrate on that multi-million dollar deal!"

if he was to kick out everyone who's telling porkies, he'd be left with not enough candidates for the interview stage, let alone a whole series.

even Stella (i should mention now, that i liked her most out of the candidates) with her 'i always got every job i went for' - well of course she bleeding would, she left school at 15 or 16, no real biz worthy education to show, she can only have gone for low level jobs where you take on literally everyone that walks in through the door without falling over. if someone is presentable like her and can talk, they are a bonus already.

when it was mentioned she worked her way up in a bank, my estimation was she had to be there for at least 10 years, since she had no degree to allow her a quick move, and low and behold it was 10 years she stayed there, starting with yet another entry level job, a PA. no real reason to boast about having gotten every job she went for, is there.

It's a good point. While Stella was in a high position in that one bank, without a degree, you will always struggle to move to a different company at the same level as your current position, because you will be competing with other people who have the same experience and a degree. The new company don't know you and will hold the lack of a degree against you.

Especially in investment banking, degree class and institution matter a great deal and it is silly pretending otherwise. I know some investment banks only hire graduates that have a first class degree from one of the top 5 universities in the country (by league tables). It's elitist but it happens.

I would have thought that at the level Stella was working recruitment is by head-hunting rather than candidates appling for advertised positions - so her lack of a degree becomes somewhat irrelevant? I assumed thats what Stella was alluding to when she said she had only interviewed for jobs she was certain to get i.e. she had been head hunted for the position and was just interviewed to double check and sort out the compensation package.

Actually, rather the reverse.

Companies are always far more interested in your experience than whether or not you have a degree and someone who achieves a good position without formal educational qualifications has clearly done so on merit.

Only the most hidebound of companies will be paying that much attention to a degree after a few years of actual work and companies who are likely to be the least satisfying to work for.


That is true, and some of them also look for a public school education.

But evidently not the one that hired Stella.

I was actually referring specifically to jobs in investment banking, as that is where Stella worked.

However, I do think some people like to downplay the importance of degrees in jobs - at least for the first 10 years of your career it matters a lot in most corporate jobs (management consultancies, banking etc.). Experience counts, but for two people with similar experience, the one with the degree has an advantage. I've seen it too often in CV sifting myself. Most corporate departments I have worked for have no employees (excluding admin staff) without degrees.

she was never hired for the position she supposedly held in the end, she started as a PA and worked her way up. however one is to read that. she was already in the system when she 'went for the job'. whole different kettle of fish.

I didn't say anything about the specifics.

I was just countering someone who said that investment banks only hire people withe firsts from the top 5 universities.

The fact they don't employ sixteen year olds with no qualifications as managers is hardly news.

When a person is disliked by the others he says it a bad thing and they can't work as a team but when he was talking about himself he said a lot of people don't like him, apart from his own family

their comment was about staff hired for investment banking, not about PAs, which rendered your reference to Stella being hired without degress irrelevant. apples and oranges, you know.

Paloma was fired for lots of reasons. Katie's attack on Adam was a response to his attack on her - he twice brought up her private life in the boardroom, the second time was after he'd already been told off for the first time. And he admits he did task-related activities while drunk, so her comments were accurate.


I think there was more to firing Stuart than that. Basically, Stuart lacked Lee's substance. If you believed Stuart, then he was great, but if you tipped over into not believing him, he became a lot less great. Lee's performance and energy spoke for itself and didn't depend on him blowing his own trumpet.


I'm confused. The winner has never been the person who won the most tasks. I thought Lucinda was a passive-aggressive nightmare.

I don't think there are any jobs where everyone that walks through the door without falling over gets taken on.

It always makes me laugh when people talk about getting a job with McDonalds as if you only need to apply to get one. I was unemployed when they opened a new big McDonalds in Glasgow in 1988 and applied. I didn't get it.

I've sometimes been amazed that I got the job sometimes. To the point where I thought it helped to have a 'lucky hangover'. I wouldn't recommend it btw

Much as I despise them, McDonalds do have a good management trainee program by all accounts. So if you want to do more than flip burgers, and prove it, they aren't the total BS you might think. Means to a better end etc.

Do you think this is how headhunting works?

Good points, and Sugar does have his contradictions, but I would have something to say about these three.

1. Paloma's firing was the right decision, because she'd failed as PM despite claiming that she was superior to most people in the previous boardroom. She sent over the wrong impression, dug a hole and paid the price.

Katie - vile and fame hungry as she was - had previously won as project manager, unlike Paloma. Adam had lost twice. Although he was a good salesman, he just didn't have the strength to win, and it was time for him to go. Though I don't in any way condone the way Katie turned on him. Alex, meanwhile, had yet to prove himself as PM.

2. I do agree more with this one. Sugar himself admitted on why I fired them that he regretted losing his temper the way he did. And lying about your previous education is in some ways worse than a slight complication between being a telecoms provider and and Wireless connection provider. Stuart was on the end of an undeserved bullocking in my opinion,

Baggsy, however, was pretty much a victim of his own self-puff. Sugar knew him well from previous boardrooms (with Lee he didn't) and had heard him puff himself up so much before with "outrageous claims", that Baggs' CV was probably the final straw. Still, if he was that skepitcal about Stuart's claims, you wonder why he kept him on in the first place .

3. Lucinda was one of my favourites (one of few in that series), but I'm afraid Sugar was right here. The facts were that she was either average or poor when not PM (except in Marrakech, where she stayed close to Lee most of the time), and she was not a good seller or negotiator (by her own admission) and you can't argue with those facts. Good PM, but we didn't see anything else.

Sugar was also tired of her by then. If her team had lost in the car task, she would probably have been fired - and we would then have had the pleasure of watching Sophocles savaged by Claude and Paul.

It seems to me LS knows who he wants from a very early stage.

When he says he's going to mix up the two groups it's pretty obvious he's making sure the two weakest candidates are in opposing teams so he stands a good chance of firing one of them.

I believe he let himself badly down with Baggsie. Basically he fell for his BS (Salesmen are the most gullible after all) and he took out his embarrassment on Stuart by personally attacking him the following week. He acted like a right knob and hardly the calm calculated level headed businessman..