Business tsar Sir Alan Sugar has dismissed struggling small business owners as ‘moaners' in an extraordinary rant at a question-and-answer session for bosses of small to medium-sized businesses in Manchester.

The star of The Apprentice claimed that a mere 15% of businesses turned down for bank loans had anything to complain about and that most of them needed an 'insolvency practitioner' rather than more money.

Sugar then went on to accuse young entrepreneurs who had never before endured a recession of having unreasonable expectations about obtaining credit.