Brown offered Alan Sugar-style TV role

In a forlorn attempt to boost his dire poll ratings and perhaps show a more human side, Gordon Brown is thought to be considering an appearance in a reality-style TV show based on the BBC's The Apprentice. The idea has been put to Brown by Housing Minister Hazel Blears who was photographed on Tuesday carrying a print-out of an email that described details of the "mainstream" show, provisionally titled Junior PM, on her way to a Cabinet meeting.

The producers claim the show could make the Prime Minister "more popular than Alan Sugar" (lynchpin of The Apprentice). Unbelievably, it appears the idea is being taken fairly seriously. A Post-It note attached to the email read: "I think you intend to raise this in the margins of Cabinet."

The email, sent by television producer Margaret McCabe to Blears' special adviser Andy Bagnall, claims the programme would aim for an "Apprentice meets Strictly Come Dancing audience", and go out on prime-time BBC1. "Please, please let all concerned know that this is not a stunt TV," it adds. "It is a golden opportunity for the PM to gather a youth manifesto and become more popular than Alan Sugar (along with certain Cabinet colleagues!)."

McCabe claims a meeting with the BBC is scheduled to take place later this month. A spokesman for Ms Blears confirmed there had been contact with the producers, but stressed nothing had been agreed. "It is a very worthy programme idea," he said. "These young people would engage and have some kind of competition, and then there would be a way of electing a young Prime Minister for a day. The idea is to get more young people interested in politics. But it hasn't been commissioned yet. It is very early days."