What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography (106 page)

'Okay, I'm
not
giving up
The Apprentice
- that's for sure. It's not for their ears, but it wasn't part of the discussions with Gordon Brown. So say, "It's a load of rubbish" and tell them they've got their facts wrong.'

'Fine, I'll go away and tell them that. That's all I wanted to know - sorry to have interrupted you.'

Half an hour later, Andrew was back again. 'I'm sorry, but there's this fellow called Jeremy Hunt - apparently he's the Shadow Culture Secretary, the Conservative bloke in charge of media matters. Now
he's
blabbing to the media, telling them he's going to protest to the BBC that your appointment cannot go ahead. He's saying that either the BBC must sack you, or Gordon must rescind your appointment - one of the two. We're being pestered nonstop by the media. What shall we tell them?'

'Tell them Mr Hunt is talking a load of rubbish - it's as simple as that. My participation in
The Apprentice
has nothing at all to do with any government work. Nothing I've said in the past five years in
The Apprentice
is political. I don't go round broadcasting, "I'm supporting this party or I'm supporting that party or I endorse this person but not that person." We've never mentioned anything political in the programme, so what the hell is this nutter talking about?'

'Well, I can't put it in those words, but I get the gist. That's what I'll go and tell them.'

'Fine.'

'I'm really sorry to have interrupted you again.'

In the dressing room allocated to me at the studio, I had the TV tuned to Sky News. Every single person and his brother
and
his dog was criticising my appointment. There was the ginger-haired lady on Sky TV, Kay Burley, standing on the green outside the Houses of Parliament, stopping exiting politicians and asking them what they thought of the appointment.

Give a politician a microphone and they won't stop blabbing. Naturally, she only chose to ask Conservatives or Liberals, so all you heard was indignation. 'How can a man like him be appointed as an adviser to the government? He doesn't know how to deal with people - look at how he talks to them in his television programme. What kind of person is
he
to be appointed in a role dealing with enterprise? It's all wrong - there's a conflict of interests with his BBC show'

I was getting a load of flak on the TV, all based on the biggest load of rubbish I'd ever heard. I'm surprised they didn't haul out Terry Venables to join in. Indeed, the whole thing was reminiscent of the day I'd fired Venables. But if I'd thought
that
had been bad, these goings-on made it look like an outing to Disney World.

I couldn't believe how it had escalated in such a short time, from half past ten that morning to now, six in the evening. The momentum was growing and growing - all over Alan Sugar. I mean, after all, what the bloody hell had I done? Nothing, other than accept a role as an adviser to the government. Maybe it was a slow news day and I was just unlucky to be the top story.

When Ann turned up at the studio at seven o'clock, just before the recording started, she got a total shock when she saw me. 'What's the matter with you? You look terrible!'

'Terrible? You have no idea what's been going on today. I can't believe it! Anyone would think I've just murdered someone or done something awful. Haven't you been watching the TV?'

'No, I haven't seen anything. I've had a lot of people phoning me, telling me how happy they are you've been appointed to the House of Lords and all that stuff, but no one's said anything else.'

'It's been madness, absolute madness. Watch this,' I said as I switched on the TV. Sky News kept repeating the same old tired story, while the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen was showing people's comments on my appointment. Ann realised why I was looking so bad.

It's hard for me to put into words how much pressure I was under that day. To be fair, my PR people, Andrew and David, were fending off most of
the stuff, but they had to keep telling me about the latest developments and how we needed to deflate the swell of adverse publicity.

It was hard, but I had to pull myself together and try to purge all this from my brain. It was time for me to go on stage and do my bit in the
You're Hired!
programme. On top of all this, I knew I had to face the prospect of going to the after-show cocktail party, where hundreds of people would be asking me all kinds of questions, not only relating to
The Apprentice,
but also to that day's big news.

The show had started recording. The panel comprised Ruby Wax, Jonathan Ross and a couple of others. When I'd met them in the gallery, Jonathan congratulated me on my appointment and asked about it. I told him, 'My head's spinning, Jonathan. I'm sorry, mate, I'm not being rude, but I've got to concentrate on the show tonight. We've got to get this away and then, if you've got any time afterwards, we'll have a chat. But right now, the room is spinning round.'

'Fair enough, fair enough. Let's get on with it.'

Adrian Chiles, the show's host, started off by asking me, 'What do I call you? Is it Sir Alan or Lord Sugar?'

I replied, 'Well, one day it'll most probably be Lord Sugar, but for now let's carry on with Sir Alan.' Jonathan cracked a few gags about my appointment, as one would expect, and overall the recording went very well.

I don't think I paid too much attention to Yasmina and Kate that night. It was a shame for them, but it was simply because I had so much buzzing around in my head. I don't think they understood the ramifications of what was going on.

After the recording, I mingled with the guests for a while, my thoughts still churning round. Margaret Mountford was there and I also had to announce that this was the last time she would be in
The Apprentice,
which, though it was sad news, thankfully took a bit of the attention away from me. I told her that I appreciated her participation over the years and explained to everyone that when I'd persuaded her to do the show originally, she'd thought it would be just for one season, yet I'd managed to convince her to do it five times. Now she was adamant that she wanted to get on with her PhD. I thanked her publicly for all her efforts and said we'd all miss her in the future. She got a well-deserved round of applause from the audience.

At the after-show party, Margaret congratulated me on my appointment, as did Nick. I started to fill Nick in on some of the background of what had been going on and, as a PR man, he looked as concerned as I was. He could not believe what I was telling him and he too couldn't understand this
nonsense about a conflict of interests. I called together Andrew, David and Nick and, there at the party, we drafted out a one-paragraph statement to be sent out to all the media that night. It stated that my role as enterprise adviser was
not
to be confused with that of a minister. I would not be making any decisions, neither would I be promoting any government policies - I was just there to feed back information from the market to the government. I added that any thoughts of me giving up
The Apprentice
were absolutely unfounded. It was a kind of a 'holding' statement that we hoped would shut everybody down. We agreed we would make no further comment at all. Even at 11 p.m., the newspapers were still ringing up, demanding information.

When I left that night, I slumped in the back of my car with my head still spinning. Ann knew not to talk. We drove home and went to bed.

The next morning, Saturday, the phones were
still
ringing. Andrew and David told me that the media had gone absolutely berserk. Every single national newspaper had allocated front pages and double-page spreads to my appointment. In particular, the serious papers went to town. It was as if all the other ministerial appointments paled into insignificance - they were just focusing on me! They kept quoting Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt all the time. The media had hooked into this conflict of interests thing.

It's funny how it is with the media. It reminds me of the incident when Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand played that prank on Andrew Sachs - Manuel in
Fawlty Towers.
Yes, I guess their behaviour was a bit childish but, as often as not, something like that will simply pass by without attracting any attention. For some reason, this time the media got the bit between their teeth and blew it out of all proportion. Of course, mine was a completely different situation, but the media frenzy was exactly the same.

I made the fatal error of reading the papers - it was diabolical! If I'd thought what I'd read about myself in the Venables days was bad, this was much, much worse. What the hell had I let myself in for? I had innocently accepted this position and was obviously very honoured at the prospect of being a lord, but I never imagined it was going to cause so much aggravation.

Earlier in the week, I had taken the precaution of speaking to Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, telling her about the discussions I was having with Gordon Brown. I ran the idea past her to see whether she could put me in touch with someone at the BBC who'd know whether this appointment would breach BBC policy. I also asked Alan Watts to read my BBC agreement, to get his view as to whether anything in it would prevent me from being a government adviser.

In BBC contracts, quite rightly, there are clauses which state that no one
participating in a television programme should be a government minister and neither should they be seen publicly to promote the policies of any political party. Alan read the contract and told me that, as my position was simply an
adviser
to the government, there would be nothing wrong in accepting it. I phoned Jana Bennett and told her this. She put me in touch with David Jordan, an expert in BBC policy, who discussed the matter with me briefly and also concluded that as long as I was not taking a ministerial role and would not be seen to be promoting any government policies, there was nothing to stop me accepting the appointment. With that in mind, I had accepted.

Now I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I was not going to give up the offer of being a government adviser and a member of the House of Lords; neither was I going to give up doing
The Apprentice.
Above all, I was not going to be intimidated by the newspapers. I was adamant that the media was not going to bully me into making decisions - I made that perfectly clear to Frank PR. They reiterated to the media that we would be standing by the short statement we'd put out the night before and had no further comment to make.

Not only did the Saturday papers have a field day, the Sundays also went to town. The thing reached such a crescendo that my PR people were contacted by the BBC to see whether I'd be prepared to appear on Andrew Marr's Sunday morning show to talk about my new appointment. We agreed it would be a good thing to do. In hindsight, it wasn't.

Again, I hadn't really been prepped on what my appointment entailed; neither had I fully understood the workings of the House of Lords. Someone like me, an ordinary person, doesn't know the technicalities of being a Labour peer, or what taking the whip means, so I was somewhat off-guard.

I turned up at the BBC Television Centre at Shepherd's Bush. In the green room, I met Andrew Neil, who was also about to appear on the show, to review the Sunday papers. His welcome to me was, Ah, Sir Alan! I've heard of rats leaving the ship - now there's a rat
joining
the ship!'

As there's no love lost between us and having had a bellyful of the crap in the papers, I was angered by his remark. 'What are you banging on about, Andrew?'

'Well, now you're going to join the Labour Party. My God, rats joining the ship!'

'Listen, mate, when it comes to talking about rats, you should be careful - you were once editor of the
Sunday Times,
so it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Do me a favour - just watch your bloody mouth because I'm going on
after
you, and I can tell them a few stories about you too, okay?'

I was very angry and he saw from my face that I was serious. He backed down and said, 'I'm only joking, Alan, only joking. What's the matter with you? Did you get out of the wrong side of bed this morning?'

'No, not at all, Andrew. I just don't think that welcome was called for. You could have just said a simple hello.'

'Yeah, yeah, sure. Honestly, I was only joking.'

'Yeah, well, not one of your better ones, Andrew.'

It just so happened that Andrew Neil didn't go near the subject of my appointment in his newspaper review. Neither did the lady who was also there reviewing the newspapers. She had overheard my heated conversation with Andrew, so I imagine she too decided that my appointment was a topic to steer clear of.

Also present was Lord Mandelson, who was there to discuss the Cabinet reshuffle and defend the policies of the government, who were under a lot of pressure over the recession. I spoke to Peter for a while. He seemed quite distant and he didn't congratulate me on my appointment. He did, however, pick up on my comments to Sky Television and told me they weren't very helpful. 'Just take care, Alan - there are some very clever and hard-working people at the DBIS. Don't assume they know nothing about business. Make sure you don't repeat such things today.'

It would have been nice if Mandelson could have given me a few hints and tips on what to say, but he shot off to a separate room. I realise now that he was preparing himself for a very tough, in-depth interview with Andrew Marr. Understandably, he wasn't interested in me at all - he needed to psych himself up.