Labour needed more individual donors to ensure Mr Starmer wasn't reliant on union funding. “We knew we needed to broaden our base,” said a Starmer aide. In a sign that a Blairite revival is underway, Labour Senator Waheed Ali, with an estimated net worth of £200 million, is spearheading the effort. Mr Ali has been instrumental in strengthening and revitalising the Lords network, an exclusive club for Labour supporters who have donated thousands of pounds and meet to be briefed by members of the shadow cabinet.
But they're also targeting wealthier donors who could give six figures or more. Ally was one of several people who provided useful introductions during Blair's administration, including Mandelson and Sir Alan Parker, the PR tycoon who asked Gordon Brown to be godfather to his son. And Lord Levy, Labour's former fundraiser under Blair and known as “Lord Cashpoint,” is helping to organise the dinners, reassuring donors that the party can be trusted again.
There's a running joke among Mayfair and Strand PR agencies representing companies in the finance, energy and technology sectors that the problem their clients face is rather that they are being invited too many times by Labour. In the 1990s, Labour's invitations to lunches and dinners with City dignitaries were derisively dubbed the “prawn cocktail offensive”, but Mr Reeves is a breakfast guy. “It's the smoked salmon and scrambled eggs offensive,” says an aide.
A close associate adds: “When Reeves was appointed shadow chancellor he quickly realised that the only way to convince voters that Labour had changed for the better was to change its relationship with business.” Since then, Reeves has met hundreds of chief executives in Davos and the Square Mile.
It was at one of those meetings, shortly after he became leader in 2021, that Reeves first hit it off with Gary Rabner, the South African billionaire who has gone on to become one of Labour's new mega-donors. The auto glass tycoon wants to donate most of his fortune rather than leave it to his three children, and Labour is one of the lucky recipients. He has donated £2.2m so far and plans to give £5m in total to the party by the next election. Rabner has been vocal about his distaste for the Conservatives, particularly the party that delivered Brexit. “There's nothing good about it. There's nothing good about it.”
