The Apprentice's Most Obnoxious

This fifth series of The Apprentice includes: a city stockbroker, an award-winning restaurant owner, a qualified lawyer, an aristocrat, a 21-year-old entrepreneur, an ex-professional footballer and a chess champion.

In my opinion, the list should instead read (in no particular order): an idiot, a fool, a right cow, a pretentious twit, a terrible negotiator, a loudmouth, a hard-nosed bitch, a schmoozer…

What is it about The Apprentice that turns seemingly successful people into cocky, arrogant half-wits? Take Ben Clarke for example. Annoying in the extreme, in the boardroom he resorted to browbeating his fellow contestants to save his own skin. And when that tactic failed, he'd reel out his oft-repeated Sandhurst scholarship boast. Fighting his corner in the boardroom after failing to sell an expensive rocking horse, he resorted to a familiar refrain: "I can compete at a world class level. I've had an army scholarship to Sandhurst."

However, an unimpressed Sir Alan Sugar dismissed it: "Don't start banging on about bloody Sandhurst again. I was in the Jewish Lad's Brigade, Stamford Hill Division, but it didn't make me sell computers when I got older!" Sir Alan's verdict is that Ben over-hyped himself. So what's new? There's nothing better than watching a cocksure contestant fall on their sword. The result is schadenfreude TV at its finest. Ben Clarke will go down as one of the most obnoxious candidates ever to appear on The Apprentice. Who joins him? See our gallery which includes the likes of Matt Lucas doppelganger Kevin Shaw and Pants Man himself, Philip Taylor.

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