Blair peer who made ’TV for morons’ led the plot
THE Labour peer who led the plot to keep Britain shackled to the single market is a millionaire reality television mogul who was gifted his place in the Lords by Tony Blair after aiding his 1997 election win.
Lord Alli tabled the Lords amendment to keep Britain in the European Economic Area, which would mean continued freedom of movement and huge sums of money still going to Brussels.
He made his fortune as the brains behind downmarket television shows and was labelled the man who ‘perfected TV presented by morons for morons’.
He made his way into New Labour’s inner circle after working on Mr Blair’s campaign to become party leader and producing the party’s political broadcasts for the 1997 election.
Waheed Alli, 53, was credited as the person the Prime Minister would ring on his mobile when he wanted to know what young people thought, as part of his attempts to connect with ‘yoof culture’.
He considered standing as an MP in 1997 and drafted a campaign leaflet for the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, but in the end decided against running.
A year after Labour’s landslide victory, he was given a life peerage at the age of 34, becoming the youngest and first openly gay peer in Parliament.
The appointment was seized on by the Tories as evidence of cronyism at the heart of New Labour.
Lord Alli was persuaded to join Labour by current shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry when they were next door neighbours in East London in the early 1990s. He and his then partner were best men at her wedding and he is godfather to her son.
The son of first-generation immigrants, Lord Alli left his south London comprehensive
at 1 to support his parents, a mechanic from Guyana and a Trinidadian nurse. He ignored his school’s careers adviser, who encouraged him to become a bus conductor, and instead got his first job as a £40-a-week researcher on a magazine called Planned Savings.
His tips quickly became legendary and he was headhunted by Save and Prosper where he earned £1,000 a day.
After getting bored of the City, he formed a television production company in 1992 with Sir Bob Geldof and his then partner Charlie Parsons. Successes included Survivor, which was one of the first big hits of the reality TV era with the format sold around the world.
They won the commission to make the Big Breakfast after Lord Alli submitted their proposal on the back of a cornflakes packet. Lord Alli has recently shifted his interests towards fashion as founding chairman of ASOS, the country’s largest online clothes retailer. He grew the company from £4million to over £2billion.
As he proposed his EEA amendment on Tuesday, Lord Alli said: ‘I come to this issue from the experience of creating, building and running businesses. It is our hope that the voice of business will be heard.’