I agree that to me the race of a few people does not matter. and would also agree with another poster who more or less said that if the bbc were being 'PC' the lineup would probonly be not much different, but i was just defending what caunte was saying and that in my opinion the only reason people were having a bash at him, was because of the wording of the straight, middle class white man statment

I've tried to give KingCanute the benefit of the doubt, but every subsequent post he's made since that one has only confirmed to me my initial impressions of him.

You may be "writing a dissertation" on the subject, but you have no experience of the criteria that the BBC has put in place for the Apprentice, nor of the business world.

You may be better off in the broadcasting threads, I'm sure that there'll be lots of lovely information for you there. Remember to reference all of your sources properly, we wouldn't want to condone plagiarism.

i would understand why some one would have a problem with what canute said, but to be fair if it is his opinion i think he should be allowed to say it. but i am sure you will also agree that alot of what canute has said has been taken out of context

I don't really see how any of that is relevant to the discussion at hand, or how any of your "experiences" make your opinion more valid than mine.

Can't really be bothered to discuss it any further at present though. I'm off to work on my dissertation.........

No actually I don't know it. The presence of Jadine, a black single mother on the programme seems to make people think that the BBC are doing some kind of quota filling rather than just the more likely explanation that she was one of the candidates who was good enough to get on the programme.

My mistake, the report on FTSE companies. My argument still stands though. Sugar isn't recruiting for a board level position and even if he was the fact that most FTSE companies are still blighted by racism and sexism doesn't mean that Sugar or the BBC need to follow in their footsteps.

My point is that the contestant lineup doesn't reflect the real business world, and it doesn't. Not whether or not it should do.

If you really believe that the position he is recruiting for is a "lower level executive" as you stated earlier, then please define this further, including evidence of salary levels for this type of position.

Neither do you unless you have some kind of secret information that the rest of us aren't party to. Otherwise you're just making this up as you go along and not doing it very well as you have nothing to back up your assertions with.

You're not an applicant that got turned down are you.

Hello, you're saying it should. The outcome of your whole argument is that more white, middle class striaght men should be on the programme.

You're complaining that the BBC is too PC. In other words that they've recruited too many people from ethnic minorities, women and gay people. Jeez, at least try to follow your own logic.

Can you answer the second part of my post please?

so do you think the fact that jadine had been sectioned in the past did not have anything to do with it. purely on her bussiness acumen, because if that is the case and she 'is one of the top business brans in brritain' God help us.

And i know you are going to say we are talking about racial issues not mental, but originally the question was poised that maybe candidates are not necciserily picked on their business acumen

Where do you get the idea that Sugar is recruting the "top business brains" in Britain? People with really good business brains either start their own companies or go to work in places where they earn a lot more than £100k.

He's recruiting a senior manager (to answer Canute), to run part of one of his businesses. He wants people who can deliver results which Jadine was able to do as she was on the winning team six times, won both her project manager tasks, and sold more than Tre and Simon on the losing task.

[quote=Dictamus;14810514]Where do you get the idea that Sugar is recruting the "top business brains" in Britain? People with really good business brains either start their own companies or go to work in places where they earn a lot more than £100k.


The narrator at the beggining of every episode

I've answered it already. You used board level posts at FTSE 100 companies as a comparison to the job that Sugar is recruiting for. He's recruiting for a senior managerial position, it is quite a high salary but he needed to have an incentive for people to give up their own jobs and be part of a prolonged intervew process for 11 weeks with no guarantee of a job at the end of it.

[quote=heidman;14810571]
Ah right, because they say it on the telly it must be true. Then again maybe they're just saying it for dramatic effect because it's an entertainment programme.

Well i don't Care wether it is true or not, that is were i got it from. and that answered your question...so there

Well, you didn't actually answer it. However, you now seem to be saying that you think it's a senior managerial position, rather than a lower level executive that he's recruiting for, which is a change from your earlier post. Let's go with the assumption that it is in fact a senior managerial position that he's recruiting for, and explore some of the figures for ethnic minority and female representation in these types of roles.

Women in senior management - 22% across a sample of the FTSE 350 companies http://www.bdaily.info/story/view/3740.

Ethnic minorities in senior management - 14% from a sample of Sainsbury's management http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/files/r....asp?pageid=37

These figures clearly don't match the cross section of candidates on the Apprentice.

Women - 47%
Ethnic minorities - 34%

This is why the candidate line up doesn't reflect reality.

Perhaps a much higher percentage from ethnic minorities etc apply to be on the programme in the first place.

Dictamus, are you there?

The percentage of ethnic minorities as a proportion of the population is 7.9% (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=273), so they are already over-represented on the programme in that respect.

Do you think the programme accurately represented the proportion of upper-class twits?

Who would you put in that category?

If you include Paul, then I certainly think that he was a complete waste of space.

I thought that his camping stove thing was an utter joke, he was trying to be "inventive" and "resourceful", but it backfired spectacularly.

You have missed out the guy who orders everybody to take off their jackets & shares his name with Bremner, Gallagher & McGrath. He also looked like Terry Hall, the ex-singer of eighties group Fun Boy Three.

Hmmm...the only white, middle class, apparently straight male left in the competition is Simon, and he seems pretty clueless about business, charming though he is.

Its true that the proportions do not entirely reflect the upper echelon of business. Clearly the business world with their small percentages of ethnic minorities and female is making assumptions about ability based on colour, creed, gender and sexual practise, and not necessarily geting it right.

Mind you, the BBC wants good telly, but its interesting to see some mindsets being challenged.