The Apprentice - Someone should be fired

 By Laura Johnson
Yes someone should be fired - for making The Apprentice a sham of a programme, the ghost of its original idea.

As you know, we've followed it closely on Women's News UK, over the years and the new idea should have worked. This was that the winner would be backed by Sir Alan Sugar to set up their own business. It should be like Dragon's Den, which has become a programme which picks real winners and losers.

Well that hasn't worked, has it! Where are the programmes showing these young entrepreneurs roaring to success? Nowhere! Whatever happened to Tom the inventor?

Even worse bright youngsters who do win through on the programme - take Stella English - find that success is in fact the kiss of death to a serious business career.

But all this is nothing compared with the shambles of a soap opera that the actual programme has become. You know what? I watch The Apprentice - You're Fired to find out what's actually been happening.

Because The Apprentice - The Main Programme is now so over-edited and so manipulated it is impossible to follow the true story of what has happened. It is no longer reality TV but the other kind, scripted reality, like Made in Chelsea.

Think about the scenario every week. Two teams compete. One loses - usually the women's team (that in itself should tell you there's something wrong with the concept).

We don't know who's lost until they get to the boardroom. We're kept in suspense - totally artificial suspense. Because the clips and the story are edited to make it look as if the teams are even stevens. Look someone's got a big order! - but they've neglected to tell us about the massive, mega-order obtained by the other team. It's a false story.

Yes, it's true we all knew Uzma Yakoob would be fired this week. That was no surprise. But in reality winning and losing has become the luck of the draw. Teams win by a tiny margin - like this week- and then the losers are picked apart as though everything they did was wrong. That's not entrepreneurialism. Entrepreneurialism is learning from your mistakes.

Besides, if you take this week's episode about farm shops, you have a clear example of nobody getting it right. The teams were told to set up farm shops - instead they set up take-aways selling milkshakes and baked potatoes. They were all clueless, not just Uzma. The best farm shop I know is located just next to a remote commuter station. That's canny.

They should all have been fired, along with the programme makers. And Dara O'Brien should switch to Dragon's Den to tell us what happens to the winners and losers there.