Brown, Sugar

Sir Alan Sugar has denied that there is any political motive behind his appointment by Gordon Brown as the cabinet's 'Enterprise Tsar' or his associated elevation to the House of Lords.

"I wouldn't join the government," said Sir Alan. "I don't see this as a political thing. I see it as my just reward for thirty years of selling badly-made shit to people too poor to afford stuff that works."

The future Lord Amstrad made his fortune with revolutionary products such as shit hi-fis, shit video recorders, shit word-processors, shit computers, shit telephones and shit set top boxes, all of which were made by cheap labour in anonymous factories on the other side of the world. He says he is "looking forward to working with a shit prime minister."

"I did own a factory in Britain once," reminisced the great British businessman. "When old baldy Sinclair's company went tits up, I bought the rights to the Spectrum. But a quick once-over with the books told me his Scottish workforce was getting paid well over the odds, compared to a bunch of starving Asians. So I fired them all, shut the place down and switched production to my old slave-driving mates in the Far East. I was quids in."

"It's people like me what made this country what it is today," he added. "Gordon Brown recognises that, which is why I'm the obvious choice to advise him on what's best for British businesses. First off, I'll be telling the Prime Minister he could save a packet by sacking all them greedy MPs, moving parliament to China and giving the job of governing the UK to a load of slum kids."

Mr Brown is thought to be considering the appointment of yet more unelected advisors to his cabinet. Westminster is said to be bracing itself for the imminent ennoblement of musikführer Simon Cowell, youth dauphin Gary Glitter, equality kronprinz John McCririck and Mad Frankie Fraser as the emperor of law and order.