Speaking to the BBC One’s Andrew Marr yesterday, Sir Alan said he “wouldn’t join the government”.
“For the past five or six years, I’ve gone round promoting enterprise, speaking to small businesses and to young people. Nothing has changed,” he said. “I don’t see this as a political thing although I know everyone else does. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just acting as a giant Dragons’ Den – although not with my own money! I am an adviser, I’m not a policy maker.”
When Marr quizzed Sir Alan as to whether the headlines were circulated as part of a publicity stunt by Gordon Brown, Sir Alan retorted: “It’s a shame it looks like that. But I’m not the type of person to be used.”
It’s just as well Sir Alan isn’t joining the government. The backlash from entrepreneurs about his mooted role as a business tsar has been fierce.
"To most entrepreneurs, Alan Sugar represents exactly what’s wrong with this government – it’s all about themselves and their own profitability and not about the people they represent,” snarls Mark Mason, chief executive of software development firm Mubaloo.
“Labour has treated its constituents badly and ‘the people’ are finally fed up with their self-serving policies and their self-absorbed leaders. If the party’s MPs were really honourable, they would fall on their swords and accept defeat gracefully. No media-grabbing headlines concerning Sir Alan or any other celebrity will get them out of the mess they’ve bought on themselves."
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