Minister for gimmicks
GORDON BROWN was accused of gimmickry over the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar as his new Enterprise Tsar last night after it emerged he will have no staff and no office.
Sources at Lord Mandelson’s Business Department said Sir Alan, appointed in a blaze of publicity last week, will not have a Whitehall base.
One said: “He will not have civil service support nor an office of his own. He is not a minister, he is an adviser. The Government has many advisers. He is one of them.”
The Prime Minister was keen to bring in Sir Alan – star of BBC1’s The Apprentice, which was won this year by Yasmina Siadatan – to add glamour to his embattled administration.
But there are concerns over how much time he can devote and a possible conflict of interest. Sir Alan is director of about 30 private companies.
Viglen, where he is chairman and a major shareholder, has just secured a £30million contract to provide 70,000 computers to schools and Government departments.
The Tories are demanding clarification.
If Sir Alan helps form policy, they say, it would be “impossible” for him to front the show during an election.