Lord Alan Sugar has blasted the Conservative party for putting pressure on the BBC to delay his show. Sugar’s Apprentice reality TV show usually airs in March, however due to his new role as ‘Business Tsar’ and possible conflicts with the 2010 general election, the BBC have pushed it back to June next year.

Lord Sugar told The Mirror: “They’ve delayed it for some political reason which is a bit of a joke in my opinion.

“Somebody from the Tory party complained to the BBC about me being an adviser to the Government and the result is that the television programme can’t be transmitted until the General Election is over.

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Fan of BBC’s reality TV show The Apprentice, will be disappointed to hear that the show has been moved from its normal March slot to June of 2010.

The scheduling change took place because of Alan Sugar’s role as Gordon Brown’s enterprise tsar. The BBC can’t take the risk of the show colliding with a British general election due to rules of impartiality.

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Alan Carr has claimed that Sir Alan Sugar was “horrible” and “vile” when he took part in BBC’s Comic Relief Does The Apprentice.

The Channel 4 funnyman told new! magazine: “Just how scary is he? He’s horrible. I thought because we were celebrities he’d tone it down, but he was vile and laid into me.

“I used to take the mickey out of the contestants when they cried on The Apprentice, but he had me in tears. I was gulping and had a lump in my throat!”

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Dragon’s Den star, Duncan Bannatyne has revealed that he thinks Sir Alan had a huge lapse of judgement when he hired Lee over Claire in this years Apprentice show.

Duncan thinks Sir Alan should have fired Lee as soon as he found out that he lied on his CV and is less than shocked that he missed his first day at the office due to illness.

Bannatyne told The Mirror: “That’s what happens when you employ a liar. I’m so angry that Alan Sugar sent that message out to the country. If you want a job, kids, lie on your CV. I’m disgusted.” Read more & comment »

Apprentice boss, Sir Alan Sugar has hit out at claims that he sits on a booster seat in the boardroom to make him appear more imposing.

Sugar told the Press Association: “That’s a load of rubbish. The chair is fixed to stop it moving backwards and forwards while allowing me to swing to the left and the right.”.

“Anyone who watches the programme will know that I stand next to Nick and Margaret and the candidates, and I’m seen getting out of the car thousands of times,” Read more & comment »

Sir Alan Sugar signs up Jonathan Ross for Comic Relief Apprentice on tonight’s Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, on BBC One.

Alan tells Jonathan: “You’re going to join us…I’ll be nice to you.”

And he reveals what he thinks about some of this year’s intake for BBC Two’s series The Apprentice. “Simon’s a nice bloke but I got it right. He’s good physically, that’s his station in life…Rafe’s a very nice fellow, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Alan admits that he enjoyed firing Jenny. “Yes, that one had to go,” he says. Read more & comment »

Get set for an Apprentice shocker tonight, as Sir Alan Sugar sacks two of the candidates amidst a cheating scandal.

The teams are set a task in Morocco but two of the team are sacked as Sir Alan discovers that they attempted to bribe a market trader.

A show insider tells the Sunday Mirror, “When Sir Alan learns what they’ve been up to he completely blows his top.

“He has never, ever, been as angry as this. The team with the two cheaters tries to bribe and cheat its way to success and that’s just not acceptable. Read more & comment »

Sir Alan Sugar has revealed that he would love to change his catchphrase on BBC show, The Apprentice to “you’re sacked”, or “clear off!”

Sir Alan told The Sun: “I’m contractually obliged to say ‘you’re fired’. Personally I would have liked the flexibility to be able to vary it – maybe to say ‘you’re sacked’ or ‘get out’. Or possibly even ‘clear off’.

“But they tell me ‘you’re fired’ is great TV.”

Sir Alan Sugar, star of the British Apprentice show, has hit out at the BBC for portraying him as nasty and bad tempered.

“Like it or not, and I don’t like it that much, there’s a perception of me just banging the table and shouting,” the businessman told the Radio Times.

He revealed he is embroiled in a “continual argument” with the production team about how he is perceived.

“The BBC has categorised me as Mr Nasty, so all the humour ends up on the cutting room floor,” he said.

No-nonsense self-made millionaire Sir Alan Sugar is set to test the business skills of ten top celebrity candidates from the world of media, sport, politics and comedy in a special Sport Relief Does The Apprentice that will be broadcast on Wednesday 12 and Friday 14 March on BBC One as part of the Sport Relief Weekend.

Viewers will have a chance to see the famous faces work their socks off over two gruelling days to raise as much cash as possible for Sport Relief, under the watchful eyes of Sir Alan’s trusty aides, Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford.

The celebrities are divided into two teams, the Girls and the Boys. Each team is given an empty identical adjoining West End store.

Their task is to come up with a name, and then to stock their shop with fabulous items that they think will make them the highest profit.

They then have to take to the shop floor where they have to convince the rich and famous to buy up their stock for the most money possible. Read more & comment »

As Sir Alan Sugar’s search for an apprentice approaches the half-way point, he decides to throw the candidates completely out of their comfort zones. He calls them to Christie’s, in London’s St James’s, where works of art regularly sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds. The candidates’ task is to choose photographs and then sell them in a fashionable east London gallery.

Natalie – a housewife with a business Masters Degree – is project manager of the Eclipse team. They are split on the best approach: should they go in for the kill or do artists and their customers prefer a softly, softly approach? Over on the other team, marketing consultant Tre objects to some nude photographs which his project manager, Kristina, has chosen.

If all goes well, the teams could sell thousands of pounds’ worth of photographs. One team still has to lose, however, and after a grilling from Sir Alan in the boardroom, one person in that team will get fired.

Wednesday 25 April
9.00-10.00pm BBC ONE

Dr Sophie Kain has become the latest victim of Sir Alan Sugar, and viewers of BBC’s TV show, The Apprentice last night will have seen her being fired in true Alan Sugar form.

After Sophie struggled with the latest task of selling lollipops to children (doesn’t sound too difficult does it?), Sir Alan said: “This is the real world love, this is not your scientific protons and neutrons. I’m wondering, have I got another one here who should really stick to what they know?…You’re fired!”

However, Sophie insists she was happy with the outcome of the meeting. She admitted to being “quite pleased” by her dismissal and added: Read more & comment »

The BBC Reports:

We witnessed an Apprentice first this week with the double firing. Booted out of the competition were black belt martial arts expert Ifti and the bankrupt entrepreneur Rory.

First to go was Ifti, who seemed to have run out of steam. Looking at Ifti’s dull eyes and blank expression in the boardroom was quite a change from the excited Ifti we saw exclaiming that ‘this is the life’ on entering the Notting Hill house in week one.

He appeared to have withdrawn into himself, admitting to Sir Alan that he contributed nothing during the task and missed his wife and son. After being fired, he sloped out of the door looking quite relieved to be going home. Read more & comment »

Michael Parkinson ranted about The BBC;s Apprentice show, featuring Sir Alan Sugar, calling it “vulgar” and “distasteful.”

“I have an aversion to that programme,” he said. “I find it distasteful. It’s full of vulgar, loud people, who, for all the wrong reasons, are dobbing each other in.”

Speaking about Sir Alan, Parky added: “When he tells someone, ‘You’re fired’, what’s funny about that? You’re fired. There’s nothing funny about it.”

In theory I do agree, but it really does make great telly!

Paul Callaghan and Katie Hopkins have decided to escape the wrath of Sir Alan Sugar and call off their brief fling.

The pair had infuriated Sir Alan by getting together while filming for the BBC’s latest Apprentice series. Sir Alan was adamant that contestants should not mix business with pleasure.

Seems like they now agree.