Lord Alli’s £1m Labour donations thrust into the spotlight by Lady Starmer’s clothes! B
He paid for a personal shopper for the Prime Minister’s wife as well as designer garments and alterations
He is the millionaire friend of Emily Thornberry who has bankrolled Sir Keir Starmer and his party to the tune of almost £1 million.
Yet only now is Lord Alli, a Labour peer who has operated in the background of politics for decades, being thrust into the spotlight in a row over clothes donated to Lady Starmer, the Prime Minister’s wife.
He had paid for a personal shopper in addition to designer garments and alterations for Lady Starmer, receiving deliveries reportedly around the same time he was embroiled in a “cash for access” row.
The media entrepreneur is Sir Keir’s biggest personal donor and has donated £947,032 to the Labour Party and candidates since 2004, The Telegraph can reveal.
This has been made up of £620,378 to Labour HQ, £100,000 to the Prime Minister, £54,000 to Ms Thornberry, the north London MP, and £50,000 to Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, in the form of cash or hospitality.
Beneficiaries stretch from each end of the party, from Jess Phillips MP, who was handed £2,000 in 2019, to Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who was given £11,000 in 2015.
In the past year, five MPs have registered donations or gifts from Lord Alli totalling £112,822, according to the Electoral Commission.
On Monday, Lady Starmer appeared unbothered by the donated clothes row as she flaunted an outfit made by the designer Edeline Lee while appearing at a London Fashion Week event.
She sat in the front row, wearing clothes in the same style as those on the runway in Lee’s show.
The top and trousers were made up of sample pieces that had not yet gone into production. The brand said they had been loaned to Lady Starmer, who would return them after the show.
Meanwhile, in Italy, her husband refused to say if he would stop taking donations from Lord Alli, instead insisting that “rules matter”.
Sir Keir said: “The rules are absolutely clear in relation to gifts in terms of the declarations that need to be made.
“I’ve said before the election, I’ll say again after the election, the rules really matter in terms of declaration.
“That’s why my team reached out for advice on what to declare from the relevant authorities, they reached out again more recently, got further advice and hence the declarations have gone in in accordance with the rules so that it’s transparent and you can all see according to the rules the declarations that were made.”
He added: “But it was because I insist on the rules that my team reached out to make sure we were declaring in the right way under the rules and then reached out again to the appropriate authorities, basically asking for advice about what’s the appropriate way to deal with this.”
Lord Alli has also given Sir Keir £18,685 of work clothes and several pairs of glasses in the past year, as well as spending £20,000 on his accommodation during the general election campaign.
Downing Street is understood to have sought advice about the declarations it needed to make in relation to Lady Starmer as soon as Sir Keir took office.
However, when No 10 sought further advice on Monday, it emerged that the previous information given had been incorrect.
A late declaration of the gifts will now show up in October. The rules that govern MPs’ conduct state that politicians must register “any benefit given to a third party”.
At 34, Lord Alli became the youngest openly gay peer in Parliament. He is said to have been encouraged to join the Labour Party by Ms Thornberry, then his neighbour, in the early 1990s.
The pair have been good friends since. He was the best man at her wedding and is godfather to her son. He was also close to Anji Hunter, Sir Tony Blair’s director of communications in his first government.
Now estimated to be worth £200 million, Lord Alli achieved public prominence in the 1980s and 1990s through his company 24 Hour Productions which produced The Word, described as “the most talked about TV programme in Britain”.
In 1992, he and Charlie Parsons, his business and life partner, merged their company with Sir Bob Geldof’s Planet Pictures to form Planet 24, producing genre-breaking programmes such as The Big Breakfast and Survivor.
Lord Alli was a prominent figure in the campaign to repeal Section 28, which banned local authorities from “promoting” homosexuality, and the battle to equalise the age of consent. He is one of the few openly gay Muslim politicians in the world.
Security pass to Downing Street
Lord Alli’s influence in Labour has grown under Sir Keir, who faced questions in August after it emerged that he had been given a security pass to Downing Street.
The Electoral Commission does not indicate exactly how the money was used, but it has been a mixture of cash and in-kind donations which could include office costs or paying for accommodation during campaigns.
According to the Electoral Commission, a donation is valid if “it is used or benefits you in connection with your political activities as an MP” and is given without charge or on “non-commercial terms”.
A Labour spokesman said: “These donations have been made over the course of 24 years and are declared in accordance with Parliamentary and Electoral Commission rules.”
