An ex-speechwriter for David Cameron and the heir to a 120-year-old Manchester jewellery shop are the two Jewish contestants in this year’s series of The Apprentice.
The 13th series of the show will follow 18 business hopefuls over a 12-week selection process, beginning on Wednesday October 4.
Among them are Jewish contestants Charles Burns, a management consultant from Manchester, and Londoner Elliot Van Emden, who owns his own law firm.
Mr Van Emden, who was described by Lord Sugar as ‘highly qualified and intelligent’ in the first episode, spent nine months as an intern helping to write speeches for the then-opposition leader David Cameron.
The 31-year-old, nicknamed ‘Tory Boy’ by his friends, specialises in advising landlords on how to evict their tenants and once dated former X Factor hopeful Katie Waissel.
Mr Burns, 24, is a serial entrepreneur who said he has his ‘fingers in many business pies’, including a watch trading company and a price comparison website.
He also runs Burns Jewellers, a family-owned business which was established in Manchester 120 years ago.
But by his own admission, he has a habit of ‘talking too much’, and Lord Sugar said he suspects Mr Burns has ‘a problem listening to people’.
With the help of Claude Littner and Karren Brady, Lord Sugar will eliminate a contestant each week as he decides who he wants to hand a £250,000 investment.
At an advanced screening of the series’ first episode, the Amstrad millionaire boldly claimed that Donald Trump was about to be sacked from the US version of the show before becoming US President.
Lord Sugar told journalists: “Before Trump went into the presidency race, apparently NBC had fired him from The Apprentice anyway – but it got mixed up in a bit of smoke and mirrors somewhere.”
It was previously understood that President Trump voluntarily stepped down before entering the race for the Republican party’s nomination for the presidency.
