The edit lingered on what appeared to be Simon having a "breakdown" during the day. With no evident Plan B in place after that point, i think his failure, and his fate were sealed.

Simon?
Nice bloke, great laugh, would be good company in the pub on a friday night.
As a boss? I'd most probably end up chinning him within a few days.

His "I am project manager" attitude stank, he wouldn't listen to anybody else's ideas and constructive criticism.
I really liked the guy originally and thought he would go a long way...he is honest, trustworthy and would be a good bloke to have on your side when the going got tough. But the turning point for me last night was when he said he was going in to check on picture frames.
He had already delegated the job of "product" to the other three, and despite their protestations that things were in hand he rode roughshod over them and said that as project manager he was overriding their thoughts. Why delegate a job to other people but then ignore them?
To him, being manager (and proving it to the others) was more important than the task itself.
I knew he was doomed from that moment.......although I really wanted the obnoxious Claire to be booted.

As they have one candidate too many for the number of weeks left, maybe SAS sould have fired Claire and Simon?

Or are they saving a double firing for when TA is up against something on another channel that may get good ratings?

I don't know why Claire is still there.
She did zero grafting and just spent all her time moaning and being rude.

I was thinking the same thing. SA almost blew a fuse with Claire last night, but instead of firing her, he rewards her with more telly edits by making her PM next week

He could quite easily have fired both her and Simon last night. So why didn't he, if he finds her so unmanageable?

Good TV

Yeah, I know what you mean.
If she had been nice it would have been boring I suppose.

The Apprentice is very watchable, yet becoming a bit of a cliche I fear.

You sensed Claire wasn't going to get fired even though 99% of the viewers wanted it.

Simon let himself down by going on about his IQ then how he made people laugh at Bluewater.

I know none of the people in the house are normal, but this lot seem more annoying than ever. And thats where you hope the programme isn't going down the route of Big Brother which just became a freak show.

Editing plays a big part. Look at that awful woman who was project manager when the girls lost the clothes cleaning job. We have hardly seen her since.

It is becoming a different kind of reality show ie more like BB etc.

I'm even being cynical enough to think that Nick and Margeret are being featured more to raise ratings as well.

Although I thought Simon leaving was probably the best idea those two are far more pathetic in the way they react with people, they're just as bad as each other. Did you see them on the computers? Alex calling a girl an "elf" and "Legolas" and Claire saying a little boy "looks like he's on crack". That's definitely professional.

It's a shame because one of the reasons I enjoyed The Apprentice so much was because it wasn't like other trashy reality tv.

Totally agree with this post. I don't think Claire came off that badly last night, although I admit Simon is a more likeable character so that's why I think people are gutted he left, even though I suspect it was the right decision.

Personally I don't interpret an inability to tell the truth as a sign of confidence or determination.

I hope she really cocks up next week, so that Sir Alan has no option but to boot her out. imo she spent the whole task undermining Simon; she has the most unfortunate attitude and the most grating voice of any contestant.

It was a no win situation for Simon. Yes, he went a bit autocratic and started ordering people about, but he had two people who were braying for his blood and attempting to ruin him as if their life depended on it. He therefore had no choice but to get tough in an effort to prove his position as Project Manager.

In the real world Claire and Alex wouldn't be able to behave like that. What happens in the Apprentice though, is SAS uses the difficult characters to see how the others deal with them. These difficult folk (Alex, Claire, Jenny, Helene) will never win the series, but they do serve a purpose.