James Heale has narrated this article for you to listen to.
As a peer who hates publicity, Lord Alli might have been expected to dodge the Labour conference – given the near-constant coverage of ‘donorgate’.
Former staff talk of birthday cards and Christmas gifts, of Prada bags and Paul Smith shirts
Yet there he was, clad in his 1990s telly executive uniform of white trainers and dark suit, nonchalantly strolling around Liverpool. It was public confirmation of what Alli’s friends say privately: that brushes with the press won’t deter him from bankrolling the party he has financed for 25 years.
Alli, who is thought to be worth £200 million, has found himself the unwelcome centre of attention over his gifts to members of the cabinet. He gave clothes and spectacles to the Starmers. He granted Angela Rayner the use of his luxury Manhattan apartment on New Year’s Eve. He has funded David Lammy’s staff, gifted Steve Reed a pair of £420 leather-lined wellies and bankrolled Bridget Phillipson’s 40th birthday party. His donations to the party have totalled more than £700,000 to date.
Various excuses were mounted this week in defence of Alli’s donations. ‘It is a noble pursuit, just like giving to charity – and we don’t recognise that enough,’ declared Wes Streeting, for whom Alli once threw a £4,600 fundraising dinner attended by actors Sir Ian McKellen and Michael Cashman.
It is difficult to overstate Alli’s importance to Labour. His donations make up just part of his contribution. His bulging contacts book enables him to play a lead role in tapping up others. As chair of Labour’s election fundraising, he used his £18 million London penthouse to host weekly meetings to plot donation drives. Such was his familiarity with Starmer team’s that no one thought it odd that he was given a No. 10 pass and hosted a ‘thank you’ party in Downing Street – a decision which sparked claims of ‘cash for access’ at the heart of government.
Friends insist that such fears are wide of the mark. ‘He’s had his seat in the Lords since 1998,’ says one. ‘What more could he want?’ Alli’s efforts for Starmer echo the work he did in the halcyon days of New Labour. In the 1990s it was Tony Blair ringing Alli for advice on ‘yoof appeal’ and Peter Mandelson using his Kent mansion to plot campaigns. On election night in 2024, Starmer watched the exit poll from Alli’s penthouse.
Alli has always been one of Labour’s moderates. He talks fondly of helping the party battle its Militant wing in the 1980s. It was Emily Thornberry – then living on the same street – who encouraged her East End neighbour to take a greater role in the 1990s. Ennoblement as the first openly gay peer enabled him to lead the charge against Section 28 in the Upper House. His attendance since then, though, has been sporadic. He’s given barely a dozen speeches in the past decade. Alli prefers to instead operate behind the scenes as he keeps the money taps flowing – even though under Jeremy Corbyn the flow became little more than a trickle.
His wealth comes from several fortunes. The first was built in the 1980s, earning a £1,000 a day as a financial consultant in the era of Thatcherite yuppiedom. The second came in 1992, when he teamed up with Bob Geldof and Charlie Parsons to launch TV production company Planet 24. The hits kept coming: The Word, Survivor and The Big Breakfast, leading one newspaper to dub Alli the man who ‘perfected TV presented by morons for morons’. Further millions came from property, online retail and media rights: not bad for a boy whose careers officer suggested he become a bus conductor.
Such wealth is lavished on Alli’s friends and contacts. Former staff talk of birthday cards and Christmas gifts, of Prada bags and Paul Smith shirts. His parties are the stuff of legend: at Planet 24, he and Parsons once lit up the huge Ark building in west London with lasers. Guests talk fondly of the annual bash at his Kent pile: a Ferris wheel, dodgems and hot air balloon have featured.
Rich, sociable and a lifelong opponent of the far left: it’s no surprise the current cabinet is willing to look past the scathing headlines and keep supporting Alli. For all the endless questions about his donations, ministers at Labour conference know his value. ‘We need more like him in Labour – not less,’ said one. On Monday, the party hosted its biggest ever business event at its conference. More than 500 lobbyists and executives shelled out £3,000 a ticket to mingle with ministers and swell party coffers: Alli helped co-ordinate donors.
Keeping business onside was one of the major sub-plots to the conference. Reeves sought to reassure wary executives over her plans to give workers more rights, insisting she wanted her growth policy ‘to be co-written with business’. More details will be unveiled in the coming weeks but until her Budget on 30 October, many fear the government is still in its ‘phoney war’ period. Reeves’s conference speech was light on details and a green paper on industrial strategy is not expected until next year. ‘It’s good talk,’ said one lobbyist. ‘But we need the detail.’
Some suggest that this strong corporate presence is partly responsible for the muted atmosphere at conference despite a record attendance. ‘These are not natural party supporters or activists, they’re here for work, so of course they’re not going to be as enthused,’ suggests one Labour MP. Other aides felt that having so many lobbyists undermined the sense of conference being centred around thanking the Labour family.
It was left to the Prime Minister to end the conference on a more rousing note. His speech on Tuesday afternoon – the first by a Labour premier at conference for 15 years – was not one for the history books but gave activists something to cheer, sausage gaffe aside. ‘It did what needed to be done,’ was the near-universal consensus afterwards. Having begun the conference on Sunday with bad headlines about Alli and Sue Gray, Starmer ended stronger than he started. ‘It resets things without using the word “reset”,’ said one MP afterwards.
Downing Street will now try to draw a line under the donations scandal and tensions within No. 10. Yet political reality might make both impossible. As long as Labour needs benefactors, Lord Alli – and his millions – will be part of the story.
Comments