Week seven into The Apprentice and Sir Alan tested the sales skills of the wannnabe apprentices challenging them select two products to sell to local retailers in Liverpool. How did they do? Our employment lawyer panel moonlighting as TV critics give their judgment.

Hugh More, solicitor in the employment team at Withers LLP:

Emotions were at the heart of this week’s race around Manchester and Liverpool to plug an assortment of poorly-picked products.
 
Lorraine quickly announced that her managerial thinking would be very much ‘feelings driven’. Certainly, she deployed her familiar skill in stirring up passion in others, though not productively: her truce with Philip broke down within minutes (again). Credit where it’s due, though: she and Yasmina did sell more feline fire engines (don’t ask) and bike panniers to Manchester than Philip, Kate and Ben sold to Liverpool. Which is to say, ‘some’ as opposed to ‘none’.
 
Lorraine was quick to highlight the workplace relationship between Kate and Philip as the explanation for the team’s failure. Had they taken their eyes off the ball, the better to gaze into each other’s? Employers increasingly acknowledge that many relationships now start at work: many have instituted relationship policies to lay down groundrules. If Lorraine was that concerned, what was she doing sending them on a romantic mini-break to Liverpool (admittedly, with gooseberry Ben in tow) in the first place?
 
Philip’s views on the matter were predictably forthright: he thought he could have done better than Lorraine and (sweetly) that Kate could have too. Sir Alan had no time for this emotions stuff. He made his selection using good, old-fashioned objective criteria: Philip had sold nothing (plus, of course – subjectively – he was a berk). He had to go.