WALTER CRONXITE, political editor, profiles the former Stanley Tech pupil who has risen to become a millionaire media mogul and the Labour Party’s biggest donor
Generous to a fault: Lord Waheed Alli of Norbury, in the borough of Croydon, is said to be worth £200m
The clue is in his Lordship’s title. But the “Free Gear Keir” cronyism storm was made right here in Croydon, thanks in large part to the largesse of Labour’s biggest donor, Lord Alli of Norbury.
Now worth a reputed £200million, thanks to hard work and inspired decisions in a stellar career in banking and the media, Waheed Alli was born in Croydon almost 60 years ago.
The son of Trinidadian and Guyanese immigrants, young Waheed went to school at Stanley Tech, leaving at 16 with nine O-levels.
Today, much of the new Labour government’s front bench, and some of their friends and relations, are suited and booted thanks to some very generous gifts provided by Alli.
The latest piece of luxury gear worn by a Labour cabinet member are the special £420 wellies displayed on farmyard visits by city slicker Steve Reed OBE, the environment secretary. Reed always looks a bit ill-at-ease when out and about with country folk, so the top-of-the-range boots – reported to be another of the endless supply of gifts from Lord Alli – will no doubt help him fit in a little easier when posing for photo calls when surrounded by silage and cow pats.
This latest graft and cronyism controversy has hit Starmer’s Labour, with legitimate questions raised over why, and how, Lord Alli managed to be handed a pass to the centre of the nation’s political decision-making in Downing Street.
It has been reported that Lord Alli gave the Labour leader £16,200 of “work clothing”, thought to be suits, “multiple pairs of glasses” worth £2,485, and £36,400 for private office costs and accommodation during the election campaign. He also provided money for Lady Victoria Starmer’s clothing.
Different planet: Waheed Alli, back left, with Bob Geldof (centre) and The Big Breakfast crew, one of Planet 24’s big successes for Channel 4
When Starmer arrived at No10 on July 5 for the first time as Prime Minister, Lord Alli was among those standing inside to welcome him.
Other recipients of Alli’s generosity include Angela Rayner, the deputy Prime Minister who, during a holiday to New York, stayed in a flat he provided, and has separately received more than £20,000 from him.
In the run-up to the election, Alli routinely hosted dinners at his Mayfair home where senior Labour politicians and wealthy individuals were able to mix away from the glare of publicity.
He is seen as having been integral in raising the funds that helped Labour outspend the Tories by more than £18million in the year before the election.
Alli is also close to Sue Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff. He supported her preparations for government and provided a £10,000 donation to her son, Liam Conlon’s campaign to become a Labour MP for Beckenham and Penge.
Downing Street passes are generally only granted to officials such as political advisers and civil servants, who need access to the building, and the Prime Minister and Chancellor’s immediate family.
Despite Starmer insisting parliamentary rules were followed, the PM, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Rayner have now all said they will not accept any more free clothes from donors. Which sort of leaves the way open for hospitality boxes at Arsenal or Ascot, Taylor Swift and Royal Opera concert tickets and luxury holidays…
Lord Alli’s allies describe him as a lifelong Labour backer who “does not want anything” in return for his donations. Which is nice. He is said to have donated around £700,000 to party funds over the past 20 years.
“Waheed was an important part of Keir’s team during the election campaign, and so it was felt natural that he should get a [Downing Street] pass,” a supporter briefed the Grauniad today.
“The thing was, Waheed didn’t really know what he was doing there, so he handed it back.” Aww, bless.
People involved in Labour’s election campaign, which delivered a massive parliamentary majority in July, said that Lord Alli not only helped fund it but also took on a managerial role with staff. Given the reported tensions at Labour HQ between the likes of Morgan McSweeney, another former Croydon figure, and Gray, it could be that internal peacemaker might become a full-time role.
Significantly, it was Matt Faulding, on secondment from Lord Alli’s office, who together with McSweeney, worked as Starmer’s constituency “fixer” during the selection of General Election candidates, as part of the purge of the Labour left. “Even sitting Labour MPs weren’t safe,” Michael Crick, the veteran political reporter, has said. “Despite assurances to the contrary, he routinely imposed ‘one-man shortlists’ on constituencies.”
Alli’s rise to the dizzying heights of the British political Establishment is the epitome of a modern rags-to-riches tale.
After leaving school in 1980, he took a £40-per-week job as a researcher on the specialist Planned Savings magazine, which led to him being offered an investment banking job with Save and Prosper. In the mid-1980s, in the middle of Thatcher’s “Big Bang” in the City, he established himself as a consultant reportedly charging £1,000 per day.
South Norwood’s finest: now a Harris Academy, Stanley Tech was where footballer Victor Moses, musicians Captain Sensible and Stormzy and mogul Lord Alli all went to school
In 1992, along with his partner, TV producer Charlie Parsons, and Bob Geldof, Alli helped found media company Planet 24, the producers of edgy programmes for the young TV station Channel 4 including The Big Breakfast and The Word.
Parties at Alli’s and Parson’s Kent mansion became the place to be seen during the Cool Britannia years of the late 1990s. Planet 24 was bought by Carlton Communications in March 1999 for £15million and eventually merged with Carlton Productions, with business-savvy Alli becoming managing director
After helping with Labour’s 1997 General Election campaign, Alli was handed his peerage – at the age of 34. The BBC described him as “the antithesis of the stereotypical ‘establishment‘ peer – young, Asian and from the world of media and entertainment”.
As a peer, he used his position to spearhead the battle over the repeal of Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28 legislation which had banned local authorities from “promoting homosexuality”, and advocated for lowering the age of consent for gay men from 18 to 16.
In his business career, he was chair of online fashion giant Asos, before selling half of his stake to set up a firm which purchased the rights to Beatrix Potter’s work.
He has continued to be involved with Labour, although he was reported to have considered sitting as an independent during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Lord Alli donated £26,500 to leadership hopefuls Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall in 2015, and £10,000 to Owen Smith during his challenge the following year, before ultimately handing £100,000 for Starmer’s campaign.
Since 2022, he is reported to have been central to raising funds for the Labour party, taking an unpaid role as chair of general election fundraising, with his team meeting up to four times a week at his London penthouse prior to the election.
Political booty: Streatham and Croydon MP Steve Reed MP in the xx boots. Lord Alli is a director of the company that makes them
He has been known to be personally generous, too.
Last year, Alli gave his friend Siobhain McDonagh, the veteran Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden, an interest-free loan of £1.2million so she could move house to care for her sister Margaret (the party’s first woman general secretary), who died last year following a brain tumour. McDonagh has said she intends to repay the loan once she has sold the house.
And there are smaller gifts from Lord Alli, too.
A national newspaper at the weekend reported that Steve Reed was the recipient of a pair of luxury wellies within three months of the MP for Croydon North (now Streatham and Croydon North) assuming Labour’s rural affairs role.
The paper published a photograph of Reed at a Wiltshire farm in the special, leather-lined Chasseur boots, with full-length zip. The boots are “hand-crafted by one single master boot-maker”, according to Le Chameau, the firm that makes them.
Lord Alli is a director of Le Chameau.
Reed has never declared the boots as a gift, nor confirmed how he came to obtain them. But then he never needed to do so. The newspaper report states that according to sources close to Reed, the boots were indeed a gift from Lord Alli of Norbury, but at the time he must have got them on special offer at a price less than the £300 threshold for declarations in the Register of Members’ Interests.
“They are smashing boots, though,” according to a constituency source, “absolutely perfect for walking across Streatham Common or visiting Norwood Grove.”
Read more: MP Reed’s farming cuts get Keir barred from Clarkson’s pub
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
Read more: People power! Reed’s ‘sinister’ complaint is dropped by police
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What a wonderful French film this could be made into! Sadly those of us in Croydon might feel something got lost in the translation…from opposition to power. Thanks, a terrific article.
Thank you for precising Alli’s brilliant career – his success should be an inspiration to us all.
Just read the Wikipedia write up on Alli, and he’s done/doing a lot of good things – gay rights and helping young people. Hopefully he’s a force for good. Bank rolling politicians wardrobes is very amusing. We all need a bit of help with our fashion choices at times, some more than others, he obviously thought there was a need.