Telly Talk: Forget the spending review posing a potential threat to the economy, because if Lord Sugar’s brightest and best of the business world are anything to go by, would the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights, asks Tracey O’Sullivan.

What a shambles. Last night both the Apollo and the Synergy teams turned a profit, but it was through sheer luck rather than any kind of business acumen.

The blunders were coming thick and fast, rising in number quicker than the bakery goods the team were asked to make and sell.

There is no doubt that Lord Sugar should have introduced a twist for this series and executed his first sacking on a winning side for sheer ineptitude.

Step forward Melissa Cohen.

Now I have never been a baker and I have never pitched for a sales deal, but even I was horrified at the way madcap Melissa handled her meeting with the management of a top London hotel. “Call yourself a food distribution expert,” you could hear her teammates chant. I reckon I could have handled it better – actually make that a three-year-old could have handled it better.

Cringe just isn’t the word for it. Asked to price 1,000 bread rolls she just looked blankly at her pad, typing madly at her calculator like a 14-year-old boy caught without his homework.

Given some courtesy time to work out her figures she somehow come up with £1.82 a unit. That’s £1.82 per bread roll, folks. The management team just stared as if it wasn’t even worthy of a response – and rightly so. Melissa didn’t even seem to get how ludicrous she sounded.

At her second pitch of the day she delivered a similar gaffe as she was asked the weight of the muffins and bread rolls they were trying to offload.

“There is obviously a standard size within each,” she answered.

“Which is?” came the fairly obvious response from the coffee shop retailers. Well, it was obvious to anyone but Melissa because all they got from her was an awkward silence. Grounds for sacking on the spot, surely? I had a vain hope that her team would lose, and in a big way.

Unfortunately, that dubious honour fell to the doctor in the house, Shibby Robati. And possibly rightly so as this likeable character only just managed to make masking his monstrous menu of mistakes a bit more palatable than Melissa’s efforts.

He sealed the deal for the 1,000 bread rolls at the hotel, only to turn up with 16 the next morning. I reckon my mum could knock out more than that on a bad day.

Throwing good money after bad he offered compensation to the chef, much to Lord Sugar’s disgust. But as it happens even without giving away the compensation they made less than Melissa’s band of not so merry bakers. And so it was that Dr Shibby found himself with an appointment in the boardroom with Lord Sugar.

Add to the mix uneventful Sandeesh Samra who looked like a tailor’s dummy as she was trying to sell her basket of muffins – why is that women even on the programme if she clearly can’t be bothered? – and the inquisition with the final three had all the promise of a Bonfire of the Vanities with no match to light the fuse. Luckily straight-talking Paloma Vivanco was also hauled back in by Shibby and the boardroom battle eventually was a feisty one.

Despite doing everything he could Dr Shibby could not be saved and just had to go. It’s only a shame the same could not be said for Melissa. Forget last week’s catfight because she is possibly the worst advert for businesswomen ever to grace the show.

Lord Sugar fired a fabulous warning shot last night as he halted her celebrations on winning, pointing out that the victory was in spite of her rather than because of her.

Surely her time is running out?