Early signs pointed to Mexican food entrepreneur Tim Stillwell being a strong competitor in this year’s series of The Apprentice, but that shows how accurate early signs can be, and Stillwell has been given his marching orders by Lord Sugar with Leah Totton now moving into the favourites position.

Stillwell project managed Evolve to a loss in the challenge of creating a new beer, but – talking to the Mirror – he remained philosophical about the whole thing. "The best thing that I've learned is that there's a time when you don't need to talk. There's a time to speak up, and there's a time when you should just let it go” the businessman said.

He added of his insistence on having the last word in the room: "It's sort of like when you're having an argument with somebody and they cut you off, and even though the argument's over you still have so much to say about it. But usually you don't have eight cameras on you and loads of eyes, so you can calm down and think I'll just drop it. But I was unprepared to drop my argument with Lord Sugar." Carrying on he said: "You only get to see him in the boardroom, and he spoke to me for like 20 seconds and he said 'Are you just one of the guys who keep quiet?'. And that is so not me, I'm anything but that. But at that point he didn't give me a chance to answer. In reality I should have kept calm and just left it and thought I'll prove myself in the next task. But he put me in my place quite quickly."

Sir Alan Sugar
Sir Alan Sugar gave Tim Stillwell the boot