The Hour

Lord Sugar’s faithful assistant Nick Hewer has revealed that The Apprentice is bringing more and more young people into the business world. It seems they are not put off by the threat of a boss saying “you’re fired”.

As the new series started, he told The Guardian: “We know it's doing a great job for young people, making them interested in business. I go to schools all the time and that's what I hear."

The show features a line-up of budding business types who compete against each other to win financial backing from Lord Sugar. Each week he fires the worst one.

But Nick admitted that the candidates aren’t the most brilliant business minds in the world. He said: “The joy of The Apprentice is that the bloke on a squashy sofa in Rotherham with a can of Stella can quite correctly say he could do better. If you want the most brilliant business apprentices in the world, go to instead or Harvard or Seattle.”

Nick spent years as Alan Sugar’s PR man then retiring for only a month before being lured back for the BBC TV show. Karen Brady is the other assistant.

In the first episode of the seventh series, the boys took on the girls in a fruit-selling exercise.

BATTLES IN THE BOARDROOM

• Lord Sugar doesn’t do it for money
• Apprentices want fame too
• A successful fruit-based business