BBC defends Sir Alan Sugar

Apprentice boss Sir Alan Sugar has been defended by the BBC over his new job as Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Enterprise Tsar.

The BBC has defended Sir Alan Sugar over growing calls for him to quit The Apprentice. Last week, the Amstrad boss was made the government's new Enterprise Tsar, news that quickly drew criticism from the Conservative party who say his new role would break the BBC's strict impartiality rules. "We are very, very concerned about the potential conflict of interest," Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt explained. "No government minister or someone who's got a key role in formulating government policy has ever had a weekly television programme, in the very same area for which they have Government responsibilities." However, the BBC were quick to dismiss the claims. "What we are absolutely determined to do is to make sure that the BBC's impartiality is sacrosanct," the BBC's editorial policy controller David Jordan told Radio 4. "Alan Sugar understands that as well as anybody else. He is determined to do everything by the book and make sure he didn't breach any of the BBC's editorial guidelines. There's not a lot of relationship between The Apprentice and, as it were, business policy. In fact I don't think anybody could point to a moment in any of the Apprentice programmes where business policy or Government policy or anything relating to it was discussed on the programme."

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