Lord Sugar indicators as much as keep on present into his 80s | EUROtoday

Lord Sugar has signed a brand new three-year take care of the BBC to remain on The Apprentice.

The billionaire was already contracted to do the twentieth sequence of the present subsequent 12 months, however says he has signed to do three extra sequence, taking him into his 80s.

Lord Sugar, 77, revealed the deal in a brand new interview with the BBC’s Amol Rajan.

Now in its nineteenth sequencecriticism of The Apprentice falls “like water off a duck’s back” lately, he mentioned.

He places cash into the winner’s enterprise, investing £250,000 in trade for half of their firm.

And he says he is “absolutely” pleased with the programme’s legacy.

“Listen, when I took the job on of The Apprentice, I was already a multi-millionaire.

“I did not do it for the cash.”

In the wide-ranging BBC interview, Lord Sugar reflects on his life and career, and also discusses President – and original US Apprentice star – Donald Trump, former contestant Katie Hopkins, and the “catastrophe” of Brexit.

Known for his cantankerous, no-nonsense business dealings and his “you are fired/employed” catchphrase, Lord Sugar insists his on-screen persona is how he is in real life.

“That is me mate, I’m promising you,” he tells Rajan in the BBC Two interview.

“I’ve sat on the manufacturing line, I’ve made stuff, I’ve packed containers, I’ve loaded lorries, I’ve delivered, I’ve collected cash. Every single aspect of enterprise, I’ve performed all of it.

“So when I got that Apprentice gig, sitting there listening to these budding entrepreneurs, I was able to interrogate them properly.”

Lord Sugar is arguably one of many UK’s most well-known rags-to-riches tales.

After failing an inherent ability take a look at with tech firm IBM as a younger man in Hackney, east London, he began promoting automotive aerials from a van, and later transistor radios.

He launched his personal electronics and know-how firm Amstrad in 1968, making residence computer systems and satellite tv for pc dishes for Sky, then by means of property investments and different ventures went on to turn out to be one of many nation’s richest males.

Alan Sugar was approached by the BBC about making a UK model of a preferred business-based leisure present within the mid-noughties, in direction of the tip of his difficult tenure as chair and proprietor of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

But why did he say sure?

“Because Donald Trump in America did The Apprentice first of all – and I have got a home in America, in Florida, and all the people were telling my wife, ‘This is the greatest TV show ever’,” he explains.

“So I knew of it.”

He’s reticent to speak in regards to the now US president, saying “there’s no comparison” between himself and the opposite former face of The Apprentice.

“He’s nothing like me and I’m nothing like him,” he says. “But the point is that what he’s doing is very, very unusual.”

Last month, Trump clashed with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyin a livid trade on the White House. “Unbelievable,” says Lord Sugar.

“There are certain things in life that I didn’t think I’d ever experience. One was Brexit, which is the biggest tragedy. [Then] you’ve got a leader of a country, of America, publicly having a slanging match with someone else. It’s just not right.

“By all means have a slanging match behind closed doorways, however not publicly.”

He describes the very public incident as “humiliating for Zelensky” while showing Trump’s “mood”.

“It’s not statesmanlike, is it?”

He goes on: “He might have performed himself a favour amongst among the Americans that backed him, however I do not assume he did himself a favour [in front of the rest of the world]fairly truthfully.”

Asked how he would get the best out of Trump in negotations, he replies: “The solely method you possibly can take care of him is to not disagree with him.

“End of.”

Always forthright along with his opinions, Lord Sugar made current headlines by airing his views on subjects together with working from residencetelling staff to “get their bums back to the office”.

He’s additionally shared his ideas on feminine soccer commentators, Brexit and Boris Johnsonto call just a few topics.

Speaking within the House of Lords in 2018, Lord Sugar mentioned Brexit campaigners, similar to Tory politicians Johnson and Michael Gove, needs to be prosecuted for “the £350m lie they put on the red bus”.

“Brexit was a total, absolute disaster,” he tells Rajan. “And anybody who says it’s not is deluded.

“That has modified so many issues.”

Despite calling for him to be jailed, a year later Lord Sugar backed Johnson as the next prime minister in order to “cease [Jeremy] Corbyn moving into energy”.

He believes rejoining the EU is the answer to getting the UK growing again.

“I’ve by no means met [Prime Minister Sir Keir] Starmer, but when I ever did I might ask him, is it potential? What mechanism wouldn’t it take to successfully get down in your bended knees and beg to be allowed again in once more?

“That’s what I would do. If I was in charge, I would beg to get back in again.”

Over the years, a number of contestants have give up the Bafta TV Award-winning present, billed as “Britain’s toughest job interview”, earlier than being fired or employed, together with within the newest sequence.

“I realised they’re going to jump before they’re pushed, in some cases,” says Lord Sugar.

He picks out one well-known former contestant, Katie Hopkins, as somebody who may have gotten the job had she not walked first.

“Remember her?” asks Lord Sugar. “Ratchet jaws, rent-a-mouth.”

Hopkins, these days a media persona and right-wing political commentator/provocateur, appeared on sequence three in 2007 however left the present regardless of being supplied a spot within the closing as a result of she couldn’t decide to a possible transfer to London.

“I was about to say, ‘Well, I’ll hire you’. And she says, ‘No, actually, I don’t want to do it’. So she left,” he remembers.

“She was good. She was the best of that crew. No question of it.”

Reflecting on the present, he believes some contestants now apply to go on The Apprentice to realize social media fame, quite than for the possibility to work with him.

“I spot them straight away, so that’s why they never become the winners,” he says.

“So they’re out, but they’re part and parcel of the entertainment package of the programme.”

Amol Rajan Interviews: Alan Sugar is accessible on iPlayer and airs on BBC Two at 19:00 GMT on Thursday, 20 March.