Waheed Alli

Baron Alli

Waheed Alli is Baron Alli of Norbury, in the London borough of Croydon. He was born and raised in south London. His mother was born in Trinidad and Tobago and his father came from Guyana, but both were descended from Indian indentured labourers, who were often forcibly sent to the Caribbean to work on plantations. Alli has explained that his family was relatively liberal in terms of religious belief. He has two brothers, one who follows the Hindu faith and the other follows Islam, whilst Alli himself is Muslim. His father left the family home when Alli was young and he had to leave school to provide for his mother and brothers. His first experience in the workplace was as a 16-year-old researcher at a magazine called Planned Savings. Though he found success in the commercial, business and media sectors, he had political ambitions from an early age and his involvement in the British Youth Council offered some of his first forays into Labour Party politics. He has previously described how his political agenda is closely tied to the fight for gay rights and equality.

After working for a period in investment banking in the City of London, Alli moved into TV and media, forming a television production company, Planet 24 Productions, with the singer-songwriter Bob Geldof and Charlie Parsons in 1992. Alli also entered into a relationship with Parsons when he was 17, which lasted for twenty-seven years. Planet 24 was at the forefront of a new wave of reality and ‘youth’ television; their show Survivor was particularly popular, and the format continues to be used in UK and US media. They subsequently sold Planet 24 to Carlton Television, which is now one of the UK’s main television companies, ITV, and Alli became an executive there. Since then, he has worked with a multitude of other production companies alongside various media and business personalities.

Aside from his entrepreneurial endeavours, Alli is a politician. When Tony Blair entered the political scene as the leader of the ‘New Labour’ movement, Alli supported him enthusiastically. After his landslide election victory in 1997, Blair, as the new Prime Minister, nominated Alli as a life peer. His appointment to the House of Lords was a conscious overhaul of the old establishment system which had dominated parliament for much of the twentieth century. Most peers in the House at that point were white, straight, male and middle or upper class, whereas Alli was thought to appeal to a younger, more diverse demographic.

Alli’s lasting legacy has been the work he has done for LGBTQ+ rights legislation, specifically his efforts to equalize the age of consent for sexual relations between same-sex and opposite-sex couples (which was then disparate, at 18 and 16 respectively). The age of consent was finally lowered for same-sex relations through the passing of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act in 2000. However, during the debates in the Lords, Alli encountered intensely bigoted views and even revealed himself to be gay to the rest of the House to explain that he had felt criminalized for his sexuality as a teenager. Alli continued to lobby for LGBTQ+ rights through legal reform, such as the fight to remove Section 28, to legalize civil partnerships, the Equality Act in 2010 and to allow same-sex couples to be married, which came into force in 2013.