The one thing we do know about Lord (Waheed) Alli is that he’s a generous man. Glasses. Suits. Dresses. Birthday parties. Flats.
There seems to have been no limit to the largesse he has been prepared to lavish on Sir Keir Starmer, his ministers and the wider Labour movement. But as the ‘Wardrobegate Scandal’ has raged, derailing Sir Keir’s fledgling administration, two fundamental questions have remained unanswered.
Who is this guy? And what precisely does he want?
The official answer from Labour is ‘nothing’. Alli – a former media executive – has been presented as nothing more than a benign political benefactor, one of those affluent if slightly eccentric characters who flit around the fringes of politics, revelling in their proximity to power.
‘He was a fairly modest, understated guy who was always there behind the scenes to help. He was never a big donor,’ one veteran of the New Labour years told the papers last week.
But if he was ‘behind the scenes to help’, what was he helping with? And more pertinently, given he appears to have been personally bankrolling the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, what is he doing now?
Lord Alli – a former media executive – has been presented as nothing more than a benign political benefactor for the Labour Party
Lord Alli, right, set up the media production company Planet 24, creator of The Big Breakfast and The Word, with Bob Geldof, centre, and TV producer Charlie Parsons
No one I’ve spoken to over the past few days seems to know.
‘He’s just a fixture,’ one minister told me, in a phrase that has been deployed a lot since the scandal broke. ‘He’s always been around Keir, it’s not a secret. There’s no real scandal here.’
Maybe there isn’t. But no one has yet come up with any rational explanation for why Alli was handed a temporary Downing Street pass within a week of Starmer becoming Prime Minister, even though he has no official government title or responsibilities.
‘He’s a fixer,’ one senior Government aide explained, deploying another of those abstractions that attach themselves to the mysterious peer.
‘What does he fix?’ I asked.
‘Things for Keir around the office,’ was the equally non-specific reply. ‘He really just wants a Labour government. That’s all he’s interested in.’
But it isn’t. Last week the Guido Fawkes website trawled through Hansard and uncovered something rather strange.
Alli rarely speaks in the House of Lords, and his limited contributions have tended to focus on the issue of same-sex marriage (Alli is gay) and the media.
But in 2013, as Britain was contemplating military action against Syria, he rose to make the following intervention.
Lord Alli revealed to the House of Lords that he had visited Syria on a number of occasions and held talks with President Assad, above
‘I have visited Syria on a number of occasions and held talks with President Assad on several,’ he told the House.
He then added: ‘I also spent some time in Iraq during the second Iraq war. I was dispatched there seven times during the conflict and spent over three months in that war zone.’
Lord Alli made his money setting up the media production company Planet 24 with Bob Geldof. Its big successes were programs like The Word, featuring Amanda de Cadenet and Terry Christian, and The Big Breakfast with presenters such as Chris Evans and Paula Yates.
Former Labour spin doctor Peter Mandelson met Bashar al-Assad in Syria in late 2001
He gradually built up his fortune from other media, financial and property investments. But there is no record of him having any role that involved major foreign policy experience. Or that would necessitate him holding talks with the President of Syria. Or being ‘dispatched’ to Iraq during the second Gulf war.
Labour sources who knew Lord Alli when he first appeared on the scene in the mid-1990s were bemused.
‘I never knew him having any focus on foreign policy issues,’ one told me. ‘He was always part of that Cool-Britannia media crowd.’
Another told me: ‘He was one of Peter Mandelson’s best friends. They were very close and worked together on the New Labour branding. But I didn’t ever see him getting involved in anything like that.’
The idea of self-styled progressives like Lord Alli courting a dictator like Bashar al-Assad is not as outlandish as it may appear. In the early 2000s, the new Syrian ruler was viewed by many Western diplomats as a potentially moderate and modernising influence.
Peter Mandelson himself had a meeting with Assad in late 2001, where the youthful leader of Syria expressed his interest in the New Labour project. Lord Levy, Blair’s senior fundraiser, made his own visits to Damascus.
But there appears to be no official record of Alli making similar trips. No sign of when, or in what capacity. One former Foreign Office minister who was involved in Syrian diplomacy at the time told me he found it ‘bizarre’ Alli had held any meetings with Assad.
Lord Peter Mandelson and Lord Alli are both firm supporters of the Labour Party
This was all before the 2011 Syrian civil war, of course, which began with Assad’s brutal repression of popular discontent. Chemical weapons, torture, extra-judicial killings, indiscriminate aerial bombardment and shelling – all of these were employed by the Syrian leader, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and resulting in international arrest warrants being issued against him for war crimes.
Similar mystery surrounds Alli’s claim to have been sent to Iraq during the conflict. A senior Labour Party official I spoke to said they believed Alli had visited the country in 2004/5 in the immediate aftermath of the war, with the then Labour General Secretary Margaret McDonagh.
‘They got it into their heads they could go out there and sprinkle a little electoral gold dust,’ I was told. In other words, try to ensure an orderly transition to democracy.
A Foreign Office source who had been based in Baghdad at that time confirmed to me Alli had, indeed, visited. But was unable to explain precisely what the nature of his visit was.
Which raises a number of questions for Keir Starmer and the Government. For one thing, it’s clear Lord Alli is not just a fundraiser and warm-hearted donor. He also has an appetite for a bit of freelance diplomacy and nation building.
So again, what precisely has his role been to date within the Starmer inner-circle? And what is it expected to be under his new administration?
When I asked a Downing Street spokesman, they merely said, ‘Lord Alli is not involved in our policy platform. There is no link whatsoever between his views and our policy platform.’
I asked if Keir Starmer himself had any knowledge of Lord Alli’s meeting with Assad, or what he’d been doing in Iraq. The spokesman replied, ‘I don’t speak for Lord Alli.’
Two weeks ago, as the Wardrobegate storm was breaking around him, the Prime Minister solemnly declared: ‘It’s very important we have transparency.’
Fine. Then, let’s have it. What was Sir Keir’s chief fundraiser and benefactor doing with Assad in Syria? What was he doing in Iraq? Does the Prime Minister know? If he does, why won’t he tell the country? If he doesn’t, why doesn’t he?
Most importantly of all what was Lord Alli’s No.10 pass for? What was he meant to be doing behind that famous black door?
Actually, let’s just go back to the original questions. Who the hell is this guy? And what does he want?
