“They might be calling me ‘the prick’.”Colourful language is another Sugar trait. Will the programme-makers ask him to tone it down? “They might do,” he concedes, “but then, I’m not Gordon Ramsay. It’s the face of a toiler, of someone you wouldn’t want to cross In America, I say, Trump is known as “the Donald”. His accent has remained the same – he has no time for “social climbers” – and his speech, although fluent, is not bound by conventional syntax.

He’s proud that wealth is all that stands between him today and the boy who grew up in a council flat in Hackney, rising at 6am to boil beetroot for the greengrocer’s Deep lines traverse his face. But there’s lots of people who’ve worked for me who can put their hands on their hearts and say, ‘I’ve never been fired.’ I don’t think there’s a lot of people here who’ve been fired,” he concludes, “other than by being made redundant.” The distinction eludes me, but maybe that’s why he’s worth £700m and I’m not.Sugar’s an intriguing figure, a man who has never tried to smooth over his many rough edges. Sometimes it’s terrible, at other times there’s no worries at all.”Can he imagine what it’s like to be sacked? “No, I couldn’t, really.” He ponders “Mmm. I suppose I was fired from Tottenham, wasn’t I, by the fans – ‘You’re fired,’ or vilified, or whatever You’re right, I’ve never been fired. He doesn’t.”Isn’t it a bit odd, I say, that Sugar’s going to be famous for firing people, when he himself has never been in a position where anyone could say those dread words – “You’re fired” – to him? He looks incredulous: “Say them to me?” Yes, I say; there’s never been anyone who could have sacked him “Well, that’s right I’ve always worked for myself, since the age of 17 But I don’t see what point you’re trying to make.

“I think that’s a bit of Trump’s fantasy world, really,” he replies. “Trump’s gone for it and most probably financed half of it, OK, and it’s been sold abroad to the BBC That’s it It’s not like Trump’s scrutinising it. In his little fantasy world he may have illusions of even grander grandeur, or believe that he has some control. He may not have the profile of a Philip Green or a Terence Conran, but rich-lists put his wealth at between £600m and £700m.I tell him I’d heard that Trump personally approved him to front the British show. I did predict in my resignation speech that Saddam probably had battlefield chemical munitions, although I did not myself recognise these as true weapons of mass destruction constituting a current and serious threat. For good measure they have also found no chemical agents, no biological agents, no weapon laboratories and no delivery systems This is less than even I had expected Saddam to possess. This week’s opinion poll showed that the majority who believe the war on Iraq was unjustified is back to pre-war levels.