On Sunday 07 June Andrew Marr interviewed Sir Alan Sugar, Businessman & Television Personality
Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
Sir Alan Sugar insists his new role as Enterprise Tsar is "politically neutral".
ANDREW MARR:
Sir Alan Sugar
Tonight is the much anticipated final of one of the most successful television programmes for years.
The Apprentice is watched and loved by millions, many of whom also love to hate the entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar who regularly reduces his quivering hopefuls to jelly.
CLIP: The Apprentice
ANDREW MARR:
From television star to Enterprise Tsar - Sir Alan Sugar, soon to be Lord Sugar, is with me. Welcome. So what did the Prime Minister ask you to do?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
Nothing different than what I've been doing for the last five or six years - indeed ten years since I've known Gordon Brown. I've always gone around promoting enterprise, speaking to small businesses, speaking to young people to try and generate enterprise. At the moment, I guess it's slightly more in trying to find a way through of helping small to medium sized businesses at the moment.
ANDREW MARR:
So he didn't actually ask you to join the government?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
No, no. I wouldn't join the government. I don't see this as kind of a political thing. I know that everybody else does, but 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…
ANDREW MARR:
Yeah.
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
…although not with my money.
ANDREW MARR:
But you will be Lord Sugar and you will be a Labour peer?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
That's what I hear. (Marr laughs) I mean it's going through whatever channels.
ANDREW MARR:
And what does that mean for The Apprentice? I mean there's a story in one of the papers, I think the Mail on Sunday, saying that the BBC are going to have to look again at your position at The Apprentice, all of that stuff.
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
Well, first of all, I made it perfectly clear to Gordon Brown that there's nothing that I would do to compromise my position or the BBC's position in the investment that we've made in enterprise by way of The Apprentice. So I spoke to the BBC before I agreed to this announcement, if you like, to actually get guidelines from them as to what I can and cannot do. And it's very simple: all I am is an adviser. I'm not a policymaker, you know, and I'm just going to take a look at some of the things that the government and the civil service do to try and help business and advise.
ANDREW MARR:
And this is a moment you know if the country had your position in the boardroom, they would be saying (if the polls are right) to Gordon Brown, "You're fired!" You know "Gordon Brown, you're out". And yet you've taken the opposite view. Why?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
Well I mean the country is driven by this giant reality show, which you know you are one of the presenters of. People like you - Paxman and the chubby fellow that parks himself outside Downing Street 24/7 (Marr laughs) and Ginger Kate who hangs around in her Burberry coat outside Westminster - this is all a game for you. And at the moment, the contestants are you know Lord Mandelson, Gordon Brown and everybody else. You know Cameron at the moment most probably thinks he's won the Lottery and gone to heaven. He's got all you working for him and it's the public that you, as the media in general, are winding up. I think the problem is…
ANDREW MARR:
But you would…
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
No, no, but look, here, I think the problem is this. We have a big problem in this country, an economic problem in this country, that has got to be sorted out. You know businesses have got to get back operating again, banks have got to start lending again. And this is the issue and what's not being transmitted at the moment is the fact that someone's got to sort this out. And if you don't shout…
ANDREW MARR:
(over) But you don't think that in the end what's happened with your appointment is, frankly, a publicity stunt by Gordon Brown?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
It's a shame it looks like that. It's a shame it looks like that.
ANDREW MARR:
I mean you're one of the people he wants to have standing alongside him, he wants to have in Downing Street, and he's achieved that.
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
It's a shame it looks like that. But I'm sure that, although we haven't met before, you would know I'm not the type of person to be used. And you know I have a passion and a commitment to try and help small businesses and enterprise to see if we can get things moving again.
ANDREW MARR:
Is it the kind of job you could possibly envisage doing under a new government? I mean if David Cameron came in, could you still be working in the same sort of role?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
As I say, as far as I'm concerned this is politically neutral. All I want to do is to try and help businesses and enterprise and promote business and enterprise. And I've never met Mr Cameron and I don't know anything about him really, but…
ANDREW MARR:
Okay.
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
…we have a difficulty at the moment and we've got to sort it out - you know as far as an economic situation - and it has to be sorted out.
ANDREW MARR:
Yeah. Now everybody is waiting for tonight's Apprentice. It's a most unusual one because there's two female contestants there at the end. I'm not going to ask you who's going to win because you wouldn't tell me, but has this been one of the more enjoyable, more unusual sequences to film?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
Yeah, this year we've had some great… a great calibre of apprentices. You know I know that the media kind of take the mickey out of them a little bit, but they're a very shrewd bunch. And these last two ladies, there is a gnat's whisker between them really, as far as I'm concerned. Two very, very, very clever girls. And I heard earlier on you were talking with a lady here…
ANDREW MARR:
Women taking over the world.
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
Yeah, taking over the world. Well you know maybe because I mean take the calibre of these two. They're certainly up there as far as, you know in business terms, as far as I can see.
ANDREW MARR:
And finally, just very quickly, are you going to be a working peer for Labour?
SIR ALAN SUGAR:
No, I don't think so - no.
ANDREW MARR:
Right, okay. Sir Alan Sugar - Lord Sugar, as will be - thank you very much indeed for coming in.
INTERVIEW ENDS
Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.
Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy
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