Simon's expertise in photography (which seemed to be genuine) was the very reason he should have ruled himself out of being PM this time as it anchored him to one part of the operation. Same for Ian last week. He should have been front of house, checking up on his head chef from time to time.

The thing that surprises me was that this was a clear management error which automatically put him in the firing line if things went wrong and I'm really surprised Sir Alan didn't pick up on it in the boardroom.

This is the first series I've watched but it seems none of the managers so far have really managed their team beyond a crappy brainstorm/pep talk at the start of the task.

I agree they were disgraceful and there's no need for it, even in a competition like The Apprentice as past contestants like Tim have proved.

Simon was on radio 2 yesterday - he said that his big mistake was taking the pictures, and said that he would have been better running the production side.

Isnt it obvious that Alex and Claire were only reprieved because they are going to make better TV in the future by upsetting all the others.

I think Siralan needs to crack down on people deliberately sabotaging tasks just to get rid of others they see as competition - or the show could rapidly turn into Survivor rather than the Apprentice. When you have only a short time to carry out a task not even the best manager in the world could overcome having a saboteur on the team ... Still I can't see Claire lasting long as Siralan clearly loathes her - and I suspect she will have damaged her employment chances elsewhere by showing too clearly that she is the type who only succeeds by undermining others.

I agree that managing people is easy when they're well-behaved (even if they have weaknesses in the job -- a manager can work around these); and that, as soon as you get a b*st*rd in your team, life begins to seem far too short.

MmM

Depressingly I have to agree...

...but lets bide our time knowing that their time for sacking will come...

so that is why he didn't sack her

They were both trying to be helpful. Neither wanted to lose the task. Part of his problem was not listening to them. Eg Alex tried to explain the tracking issue on the phone and he did nothing about it.

As others have said, he should not have been both Project Leader and Photographer. He should have had a dummy run-through, taking and printing pictures of the team, to make sure the system worked. Failing that, he should have got production started earlier instead of leaving it to the last minute. He should have listened when his staff were informing him of problems. He shouldn't have been autocratic and arrogant. He should have kept his cool. He should have kept his staff better informed when he knew they were mixing up the photos at the end and they didn't know anything was wrong. He should have paused the photography when necessary to concentrate on solving the problems.

He was a good second in command and a poor leader. It's a shame he went so early, because others remain who are worse, but it happened because he put himself forward and promoted himself beyond his ability.