He can afterall trust a spurs fan more then an ambitious female!

child-bearing age... looking for a boyfriend... You could be right there.

Am I being dumb? But who is Michelle?

I know you're only half serious, but you may have got something there. Michelle Dewberry was a gamble for Sir Alan and she messed up big time. I think now that given two candidates who are pretty much equal in abilities, he will always go for the man, and therefore a woman is not likely to win again. Which is a great pity, because not all women are like Michelle!

Duberry?

The pretty but unremarkablke blonde who duped SAS with hard-luck stories and fluttering lashes. Worked for about a week, was ill a lot, then pregnant, then miscarried, then left.

I said the same thing as the result came through.

However at the same time, he chose MIchelle over Badger and if anything Claire was more Badger than Michelle so I was hoping he would choose Claire, not just because she was by miles the best candidate, but to see how Badger may have turned out.

i thought that exact thing, especially when SAS sais that he'd thought long and hard about it
sure he said last year he wouldn't have another woman

I dont think SirAlun likes strong women- after the Badger debarcle thats the only conclusion I can come to...

Given the choice between a strong woman and a more passive candidate he'll go for the passive one every time.

The glass ceiling still exists girls....

Kind of makes you wonder about Margaret, doesn't it? She must have lots of hidden qualities!

mmm is she really a woman? who knows

I think its because he wanted an apprentice. He could just hire Claire for a normal job. there's not much to teach her.

good point

I think he chose Lee because despite her efforts to change, I think he thought Claire would be too much of a handful and he chose Lee cause he was more successful on the tasks and got on well with the others.

Perhaps it was the opportunity to see a Reverse Pterodactyl as well

so lee will do as he's told and claire has a personality?

Yes, he wants an apprentice rather than the finished article, but at the same time.... it makes a mockery of the whole process to not choose the person who seemed the strongest through the 12 weeks (yes, some will argue that they thought Lee was and fair enough... I just don't agree). Not to mention that clearly Claire wasn't the finished article when she came in as she's admitted herself that she's learned a lot and really changed her approach through the last 3 months.

Two abilities that would be HIGHLY desirable in any apprentice are the ability to handle pressure and the ability to present. Lee is going to be making a crapload of presentations and the fact is that even if he improves another 100%, he's never going to be very good at it. He was also clearly poor when it came to real pressure situations.

I liked him a lot and I think he seems like a great guy. But the flaws he does have would, I think, pose far greater problems given the likely style of job he's going to be doing for SAS, than the flaws Claire has.

From what I gather, Margaret wasn't on the payroll? More that she subcontracted to him or her services where taken through a third party.

Given his recent comments regarding taking on women employees (and I am making no comment as to right or wrong regarding those) one COULD assume that he REALLY doesn't want to!!

I totally agree i dont think Sir Alan will hire another woman on the apprentice after what happend with Michelle that year

I honestly think Lee will make a better 'apprentice' than Claire, she hasn't changed that much and birmingham city have a new employee, lol

I worked it out as well. I was posting on another board and typed the words "and the winner is..... Lee" instinctively about 2 mins before Sralan said "you're hired" to him.

I think it's sad but Sralan has well publicised opinions about women of childbearing age which is worrying in this day and age. At the same time, I think he might feel that Claire doesn't need his help that much that she needs a job working for him. I guess he feels that he can work on Lee a lot and as he admitted on "You're hired", he had a task in mind for Lee which will suit him down to the ground.

kateab

With Badger he at least had the excuse that Michelle was competent and her winning point was that setting up call centres in India which she had done before was very similar to setting up computer disposal subcontracts overseas which was the job he wanted done.

Michelle evidentally was bright enough to realise that this was a dud idea so her job vanished at that point regardless of anything she did later.

He has a problem though and Miriam and Saira in series one suffered from it from the start. Their CVs now look like what an apprentices winners should from what we hear in the paperrs.

Or in this case under the ground - though I can't see how it will take that long to sell or not to sell TV screens to London Transport. Either they want them or not. I presume he isn't going to have to wire them up which looks an ideal job for Simon.

Ppppftttttttttttttttt!

After he most of his comments on her were about how much she has learnt and improved?

She might learn how to put a sentence together with training.

I would like to think that Claire lost for similar reasons to Kristina - she could probably do a better job than the one 'reserved' for the winner

Maybe Claire lost because of her gob.
SAS had said that he wasn't sure if he could handle her!