Alan Sugar may be summoned by BBC

Gordon Brown’s new enterprise tsar must choose between politics and his TV career on The Apprentice, say the Tories

LAST UPDATED 1:18 PM, JUNE 8, 2009

Sir Alan Sugar is likely to be summoned before a panel of BBC chiefs after the Conservative opposition complained that his new Labour peerage and appointment as Gordon Brown's 'enterprise tsar' conflicts with his hit TV show The Apprentice.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has asked the head of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, for an urgent inquiry, arguing that the appointment is in breach of the BBC charter. In a letter to Lyons, Hunt said presenting a programme and working for the Government on the same issue was "totally incompatible with the BBC's rules on political independence and impartiality".

Sugar, who is no stranger to making cut-throat decisions every week on The Apprentice, must weigh up his options, Hunt said. "Sir Alan Sugar needs to make a choice between his role in The Apprentice and his role as the Government's business tsar."

The abrasive entrepreneur has shrugged off concerns that his decision to accept the role advising Brown, announced in Friday's Cabinet reshuffle, is political. "I don't see this as kind of a political thing. I know that everybody else does," Sugar, who has given Labour more than £1m in donations, told the BBC's Andrew Marr on Sunday morning. "As far as I'm concerned I've just got a passion to help out young people, to help out businesses and act as a kind of giant's Dragon Den if you like... although not with my money."

Sugar's critics point out that the next series of The Apprentice is scheduled to air early next year – just as the country will be preparing for a general election. There is also anger over the appointment of Sugar from within the Labour party. Former Labour treasurer Baroness Prosser attacked the tycoon's management style which she said was based on "bullying and sexism".

But perhaps she should not be too concerned. Brown's hopes of rejuvenating his government with his new political apprentice was already foundering yesterday when Sugar attacked the Prime Minster's flagship 50p tax rate for those earning more than £150,000.

Asked by the Sky News political editor Adam Boulton whether he was looking forward to paying the higher rate, he said: "I don't like it. I don't like paying 50 per cent of tax. But that is what it is, that is what we will have to do."

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I challenge your statement that Sir Alan 'attacked' the PM's tax rate, he didn't. Attack; to subject something/someone to strong or vehement criticism - he didn't. As you qualify in saying next, he was asked a question, all he said was he didn't like it. Do you know many people that do, who clap their hands in joy & exclaim, "just a shame it wasn't raised before now! Should be 52%." I disagree with it & I'm more than 120K shy of that figure. Many, many people are employed by the government and in advisory roles or tsars without carrying political weight. It's a strategy by the gov't to bring experienced reinforcement and savvy to British business enterprise. It is proactive, give it a chance. What was Mr Hunts suggestion, I didn't catch that, surely the shadow busin.. sorry, culture secretary must have had an idea to present, or was he just complaining. We don't need just moaning & complaining from the opposition, they should be tabling viable & constructive solutions. Finally an open comment to the tories, show us why we should elect you. Give us a reason, not just posturing!

Posted by sachman at 3:06pm on June 8, 2009

I have another concern. Will Yasmina, worthy winner of the apprentice be selling or pitching Sir Alan's Screens to the NHS as I'm sure she mentioned this morning on the BBC breakfast News programme? I may have misheard this- but i'm sure a playback of the programme would enlighten us. This would be more worrying for me. Getting nhs contracts by using a celebrity to pitch?

Posted by Lucy Woolcock at 5:22pm on June 8, 2009

By the same reasoning, we would be denied the joy of Boris Johnson and Alan Duncan on Have I Got News for You, or any of Anne Widdecombe's TV adventures. It is just silly and petty of the Tories to raise this, and would set a precedent that would impoverish television and radio of the participation of some gifted raconteurs, and deprive government and politics the participation of anyone with a media profile developed outside of politics and unrelated to expense fiddling and / or personal penchants for duck islands and / or moats.

Posted by Fred Smith at 10:17pm on June 8, 2009

There is a strong authoritarian streak running through Dave's New Toffs. After decades in the poltical margins, the aristos, the born-to-rule elite are set to rescue us plebs from ourselves. They detest the working-class-lad-made-good types like Sugar and can hardly wait to crush the BBC. This is petty stuff, hardly worth a mention when compared to the revolving door culture that operated btwn Brown's Treasury and City bankers, resulting in Brown's government gifting a generation of future taxpyer's contributions to bail out his banking pals. Even if Sugar was the most devoted of Labour loyalists, how would it affect entertainment like the Apprentice, and even if it did, so what? This is not a news or political affairs programme, so where does the issue of bias come into it? Are the BBC to ban politcal bias from drama next? This is Tory troublemaking at it's most puerille and moronic.

Posted by Harlan Leyside at 11:42pm on June 9, 2009