Sunday, June 07, 2009

Sugar Perplexed by Concept of "Working Peers"

I just caught the end of Andrew Marr's interview with Alan Sugar. He asked him if he was going to be a working Peer. Sugar said: "I don't think so, no". Well what on earth is the point of him being appointed to the House of Lords then? Or could it be that he hadn't got a clue what Marr was talking about? Alan Sugar, you should be fired.

38 comments:

colin said...

The look of puzzlement on his face was a picture.

Iain, you may have missed him personally insult half the political lobby: "the chubby one", "ginger cakes" etc. Smart move Lord Sugarlump.

BROWN OUT said...

God only knows why Sugar is heralded as some business guru. Ask Amstrad shareholders what they think of him!

Anonymous said...

Maybe Lord Sugarpuff thought he was being asked whether he would be a working pier. Not many of those left. They have a tendency to burn down.

This won't last, mark my words.

JuliaM said...

And Gordon's Cabinet of the Damned lurches ever forward.

We won't need a new season of 'Big Brother' at this rate. The media has the scent of blood now.

Newmania said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Have you noticed how inarticulate he is (and always has been)?
PS Why didn't AM ask him about the '92 letter?

IanVisits said...

Considering the gossip that he was considering running for Mayor of London, can he actually do that from the House of Lords?

We could have two Lord Mayors in London!

Trend Shed said...

"I'm going to just keep on dong what I've always done" and "I won't be used by anyone".....


Never has there been a more irrelevant appointment to cabinet.

On a different note - Andrew Marr has discovered a backbone in his interview with Mandelson. Now THAT is a surprise.

Newmania said...

That’s a bit precious ,why should he ? If I thought he would help small business , by which I mean ridding us of regulations and taxes on work , I `d welcome him. Sadly this is not possible . Policy Exchange have analysed Government spending and shown convincingly ,in my view, that under Brown, Government spending has reached a level whereby the coming tax environment will sweep away any footling gestures a Sugar might come up with .

Unknown said...

The Lord appearing with The Chubby One at 10.14am

Unknown said...

"The Labour whip?"- Pathetic!

Anonymous said...

What got me was Sugar thinking this wasn't a 'political position'.

Just how naive is this numpty? Brown and Mandelson know only one thing.

Politics.

Anonymous said...

A few sexist comments from 'Lord' Sugar will just confirm what everyone thinks: Gordon is running a mysogynistic inner cabal of bullying men and the women are just there to make it appear inclusive.

Despite the fact his last two 'apprentices' this year are female, he has made some very un-PC comments in the past - and I doubt if his mouth can be restrained now he's thrown his lot in with Labour.

Women, like me, may enjoy watching The Apprentice, but they won't like his attitudes on display in Government.

varka said...

Sugar has not got a clue, or is just assuming that we are too thick to see what is going on. If, as he says, he is just continuing with what he was doing for the last 10 years - just advising, then why make him a peer? Sugar says he is politically neutral and will not be influencing policy, but he will have a vote in the House of lords - THAT influences policy.

This is just spin an bollox from Labour again. It is a publicity stunt timed to coincide with the poor results of the recent polls and the final of the TV program that Sugar is on. I had to switch off the Marr interview with Mandy as there was a danger of a tea cup hitting the screen.

I know wingnut is adjacent to useless as an interviewer, but more and more I see the TV interviewers missing out on the duplicity being spun in the answers that politicians give. Nick Raynsford was a classic example this a.m. - he starts of replying why it is a bad thing to have a leadership election in the labour Party, and then goes on on the context of it also being a bad idea to have a general election. They are two different things, so why let him continue without challenging him? Interviewers should listen to the replies and pick up the inconsistencies (or at least the people speaking to them in their ear pieces should help them). I am getting really mad at seeing these slimy snakes (just seen Mandy AND Hain in quick succession) spinning away with no challenge - TV intervewers LISTEN TO THE ****ING ANSWERS YOU ARE BEING GIVEN AND PICK UP ON THE INCONSISTENCIES - PLEEEEEEEZZZEEE!

varka said...

Oh, forgot to say that Iain and the other bloggers are just about the only people who seem capable of analysing what is being said, and commenting sensibly on it.

When I come away from the TV to see what the bloggers are saying about the TV interviews, I see that my understanding of what I have seen coincides much more with the bloggers than the TV people.

Is it simply that the blogs only can exist if they are incisive, properly analytical, and fearless in publishing whereas the Beeb is just concerned with keeping Labour in power?

Gareth said...

Lord Sralan clearly doesn't expect to be spending much time in the Lords.

So what is he being appointed for?

Anonymous said...

great.
sugars first interview as a labour stooge and he reads the script.

lie lie lie. what a shocker.

all for a peerage.what a country we live in.other g20 countrys must just read this with jaws dropped.i am ashamed to be british.which i think was part of labours plan.

Anonymous said...

ps sugar made all his money in property but wont admit it.

Smudge said...

It used to be Cash for Honours now it looks like Cash AND Honours..

is this Brown cleaning up politics.

More...

et tu Barry ? said...

Quoted in the Times in May 2004 ('Business figures reject Sugar's style')

"Sir Alan's management style is 'command and control'- where there is less questioning, less debate and less discussion.

"The upside is that in the short term, you can get phenomenal returns and output from people but the downside is that in the long term people don't want to work for you.

And:

"He seems to view people as a commodity - to come in for a year or two and if they don't perform they are out. My business would not survive if I had a turnover of people like that.

A telling choice, eh ? Gordon: You're fired !

Not a sheep said...

Why has Alan Sugar been ennobled? The answer is clear if you look for it... More on my blog tonight.

The Purpleline said...

Sir Alan came across in that interview as an uneducated numbskull. He does not realise that Brown and Mandy are brighter than he is, although he did get a massive contract to sell computers to the government allegedly (Guido) last month.

The man is a spiv he does not deserve to be in the House of Lords and I believe now he has found out that as a member of government he will be accountable and asked for interviews on terms he cannot dictate that he will suggest to Gordon to go back to his original role.

I also thought he was an absolute imbecile to describe Sky’s Adam Bolton as the chubby fellow out-side number 10 & Kay Burley as the Red head in a Burberry Mac treating politics as a reality show. He has just signed up to be a contestant in that great show and on his first interview; he flopped like his useless computers.

Andrew said...

Why on earth has Alan Sugar - presumably now Baron Sugar of Amstrad, in the County of Failed Businesses, and Apprentices, in the County of Sexist Bullying - has been ennobled if he is not going to be a Minister of the Crown? Not so much Government of All Talent but s Weapon of Mass Destruction launched by Labour on the British people.

Yet more jobs for the boys (don't tell La Flint...). The sooner this Parliament is dissolved and this Government given a communal P45 the better. Then the electorate - who are and should be the only independent regulators - can have our say.

Gordon Brown, you are the weakest link. Goodbye.

Anonymous said...

Sugar is more of a property developer than a proper businessman. In early days of personal computers, he produced the Amstrad PC with a large chip inside mimicking the functions of chips in a proper IBM PC. Marketed the stuff for £400 when IBM PCs were selling way above £1400. The problem was he did not think through how the software was developing and his machine soon became a toy piece. Industry shunned it. Made not much money out of it, and it floundered at the end.He was so thick that he did not believe in software. Showed him in his true self- a hawker of TV sets driving a pick up truck in his East End days. Can't see him as a proper businessman. Today Looked and sounded very lost, confused and naive about his party affiliation. The BBC trust should remove him from presenting the programme.

Savonarola said...

Sugar gave NuLab £200K in April 2002, the day his company, Viglen, was placed on the Govt's approved supplier list.

Sugar is the kind of man that would make money during wartime.

The City think he is a below average barrow boy. Another Venables.

Anonymous said...

Alan Sugar is a shark. He knows exactly what the score is. Sugar is bluffing and is stalling for time > since he is probably still negotiating his faux 'terms' with Gordon Brown.

Alan Sugar thinks that Alan Sugar always gets what Alan Sugar wants. He's wrong on this one. It'll never happen.

I just heard Sugar say on the Politics show that he's not too worried about paying higher tax since the Tories will probably win the next general election... So > publicity for The Apprentice and nothing more? That is the question...

jaybs said...

I just can't understand if Sir Alan is as he says only going to be an advisor why does he need to become a Lord? and if he does accept the position as it seems he has, which side of the House will he sit with?

That means the BBC must ask him these questions, he can't have it all ways, he then must be Fired from The Apprentice! quickly.

et tu Barry ? said...

Article here (sorry, not 2004):

Business figures reject Sugar's style
Times Online May 4, 2005
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/entrepreneur/article388331.ece

Spectator said...

Reform the upper house, please..........how long can we go on with it like this. It must be the laughing stock of Europe. Both this appointment, and that of Lord Mandelson, are undemocratic and should not be able to happen.

Hacked Off said...

Anon at 11.18am, sorry, you're just plain wrong. Alan Sugar made shed loads of money floating Amstrad as a public company.

The Penguin.

Dimoto said...

The Adam Boulton interview with Sugar on Sky, where he was asked about conflicts of interest with his BBC stuff was far more revealing ... and damning.

Anonymous said...

You don't think that this 'Sugar Job' is a post Cash for Peerages legitamisation scheme do you?

I think it could well be the case.

Sugar has donated about £1 Million to Labour in recent years, will Sugar be Donating more in the near future? This Job for Brown looks like a non-job to me.

It stinks!

Sugar said on a recent documentry he hates the hoi peloy and does not like using public transport. He obviously wants to differentiate himself from the crowd - what better way?

DespairingLiberal said...

He obviously suspected some sort of trick question, so was cautious for that reason. I don't know much about the Lords - was it some kind of clever trick question by Marr?

Anonymous said...

i think alan sugar is a pretty cool guy. eh doesnt know his arse from his elbow and doesnt afraid of anything.

Erskine May said...

If he doesn't think he is going to be a working peer, then there may be problems getting his nomination cleared by the Lords Appointments Commission. They have issued clear guidelines as to the conditions to be met. He may need to revisit what he said on the Andrew Marr Show.

Wilson Cotton said...

Fans of Lord S'ralan may care to watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxi6QDwQyLU

Jimmy said...

"They have issued clear guidelines as to the conditions to be met. He may need to revisit what he said on the Andrew Marr Show."

At least he lives in the country.

Flemingcrag said...

Alan Sugar must be the thickest of the thick. He has just been "filleted" by Mandelson. With his backbone removed he can now slither into the Labour camp.

What did he think, accepting a Labour Peerage would mean that he could still present a neutral personna. He is firmly in the camp of the "we know best socialists", the tax, tax, tax and then spend it and some more camp.

Would you buy a computer or any any other product from this art exponent of the spend others money camp and still fully expect their "one year guarantee" to be honoured.