THE son of a milkman who lied on his CV confounded the bookies last night by winning The Apprentice.
Lee McQueen, 30, a former recruitment sales manager, won the £100,000-a-year job with Sir Alan Sugar, despite being caught stretching the truth about his education in an earlier episode.
The tycoon picked Mr McQueen over hot favourite Claire Young and the two other contenders, regional sales manager Alex Wotherspoon and global pricing leader Helene Speight, to launch a digital advertising product.
The finale of series four of the ratings-winning programme saw the four contestants tasked with designing and manufacturing a new fragrance for men in just one week.
The showdown split them into two competing teams and tested their creative, strategic and presentation skills in front of an audience of industry experts including Givenchy and Estee Lauder.
Last night, Sir Alan praised all of the finalists. He said it was a difficult decision to pick the winner, but he had been "very, very convinced" by Mr McQueen.
Of the new Apprentice's job, Sir Alan said: "There is definitely a great job there.
"It's a new venture – something 21st century and it's quite exciting."
Mr McQueen grew up in South Ruislip, Middlesex, but now lives in Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire.
When he was 17, his parents split up and he bought his first house when he was just 18, before buying a home for his mother, a doctor's receptionist.
Last year, he earned £78,000 working as a recruitment sales manager for the Capita group.
His first real job was as a catering manager at Harrow School, but he has worked in e-commerce and IT ever since.
Mr McQueen, who has lived with his girlfriend Nicola Jellyman for eight years, said: "When I was told I'd won I was relieved, overjoyed. My heart missed a beat. It took a couple of seconds to sink in.
"I think what swung it for me was when I rolled off my record to Sir Alan. I've been a project manager three times, won three times and never been in the boardroom."
Yesterday, William Hill had rated Ms Young an 11/8 favourite to win, with Mr Wotherspoon at 9/4, Mr McQueen at 7/2 and Ms Speight, the outsider, at 9/2.
Mr McQueen said: "I am gutted for her (Claire Young]. I believed at some point that Sir Alan would choose her."
Mr McQueen, who raised eyebrows with his "reverse pterodactyl" impression during an interview, left school with eight GCSEs and a BTec diploma in IT.
He said he was "ashamed" about lying on his CV, but insisted the fact he was not educated to the degree of some of the other candidates "shows you can change your situation by hard work and determination".
He added: "Lying on my CV lost me some of my integrity. I learnt from my mistake."
Oh no Sir Alan, you've hired an eejit purveyor of frilly pants instead of ClaireBy Roger Cox IN THE end, the bookies got it wrong and so, frankly, did Sir Alan. Feisty retail buyer Claire Young was the best of the four finalists by a country mile and the clear favourite to become the next Apprentice, but somehow, inexplicably, she ended up losing out to a semi-literate eejit whose best asset seems to be his "reverse pterodactyl" impression.
Fans of Lee McQueen will no doubt bang on about what a "nice guy" he is, but is he really as nice as all that? Remember how he treated Lucinda in the car task?
And does Sir Alan Sugar really need a nice guy in his "organisation", as he is so fond of calling it? Since when has "niceness" been a key skill in business? Claire's vicious boardroom attack on Simon the arrogant bank manager after the photography task may have been unpleasant, but a lot of what she said was right on the money. Sometimes the truth hurts. Better, surely, to have someone in your company who is prepared to speak their mind than another fawning "yes" man (or "yes" woman).
And then there's the whole honesty issue. The fact is that in order to make it on to The Apprentice in the first place, Lee lied about his education on his CV, claiming to have spent two years at Thames Valley University when he in fact dropped out after just a few months. Watching him squirm when his lie was exposed in the interview round was one of the most toe-curling moments of the entire series. A better man might have laughed and said "yeah, you got me bang to rights there, guv'nor, but I only lied because I want this job so badly," but Lee compounded his error by making a couple of cringe-worthy attempts to blag his way out of trouble before finally admitting defeat.
Sir Alan is deluding himself if he thinks he has just employed a bright kid from a rough background. In reality he has handed a six-figure salary to a slightly above-average salesman (Lee did sell frilly pants very well at that big Wedding Expo in Birmingham).
Of course, none of this will come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the series. It's no secret that Sir Alan had lost his grip on reality about halfway through, when he refused to fire the hilariously inept Michael Sophocles time after time because, he claimed, he saw a little bit of himself in him. Whether he was referring to the ex-Edinburgh student's arrogance or diminutive stature, he didn't say.
But to be fair to Sir Alan, he hasn't exactly had a huge array of talent to choose from.
IN QUOTES"Edinburgh (University] isn't what it used to be" – Sir Alan Sugar's adviser Margaret Mountford, when classics graduate Michael Sophocles was unsure about kosher food
"You've got a mouth the size of the Blackwall Tunnel" – Sir Alan complaining about Claire Young's loudness
"If you're unsure, we can always pull your trousers down and check" – Sir Alan quizzing Michael Sophocles on whether he was a "good Jewish boy"
Click here to watch the video"If I would have been the recipient of one of your sales pitches, I'd push your bloody face in the cake" – Sir Alan to candidate Sara Dhada
The full article contains 1064 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
