THE last time I met Waheed Alli he was co-producing two controversial television series, Big Breakfast and The Word. Young, gay, left-wing and — rumour had it — adept with money, he was a fresh-faced 29-year-old with a natty line in peacock braces and an exuberantly “stuff you” attitude to the media and political establishment.

Ten years on, he’s still knocking out television programmes and wearing snazzy suits. But he’s also a member of the House of Lords, chairman of a public company, adviser to a leading bank, board member of the London School of Economics, vice-president of Unicef UK, confidant of government, owner of a huge country pile, and a multimillionaire. Boy, did I not see all that coming.

I’m not the only one. Sometimes, talking to Lord Alli now, you get the sense that even he is surprised at how opportunity has opened up for him, and he loves the way it foxes people. “I’ll tell you a story,” he says conspiratorially. “I was invited recently to see this newspaper proprietor, right? And I walk in, because I’ve just been on set, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and the receptionist just looks at me and goes, ‘Are you here to pick him up?’”

Alli, born in south London, his dad a mechanic, his mum a nurse, giggles at his own double entendre. “She thought I was a bloody minicab driver!”

The grin broadens, the teeth flash. Short, chunky, good looking, diamond stud glinting in one ear, the garrulous Alli seems far more comfortable in his own skin than he was a decade ago.

Back then, he was not cracking jokes but sitting anxiously in an ugly, windblown office block in London’s Docklands — a typical Alli wheeze as space was far cheaper than in Soho or Notting Hill — surrounded by grumpy production staff who wanted to be somewhere trendier.

Now he works out of a beautiful designer space, four floors up at the head office of Chorion, the intellectual-property- rights company that he chairs, next to the LSE in London’s Aldwych. Large abstract canvases hang on the walls. Two sumptuous fawn suede sofas, matching armchairs and a long glass table edge the room. “All mine,” he says, “I wouldn’t expect Chorion to pay.”

This looks like management by elegant loafing around. But then Alli, right now, has a lot to be comfortable about. Since selling his production company, Planet 24, to Carlton for £15m in 1999, and pocketing £5m himself, he has become rich. He has also — through his peerage and links with the Labour party in which he has been an activist for 20 years — become seriously well connected. And his business ambitions seem to be broadening.

Next week Chorion, which fought off a takeover bid last year, is expected to produce sparkling results. By then, Alli will also know if Shine, the joint-venture production company he runs with Elisabeth Murdoch, has secured an important commission from American television.

So he can afford to be charming. Behind the big brown eyes, however, you can always sense the driving ambition and that yen for a deal.

“Waheed is utterly ruthless and razor sharp,” laughs Dawn Airey, managing director of Sky Networks and an old friend, “but the disarming thing is his clarity and lack of bullshit. And he always attaches himself to great creative talent.”

He was certainly a catch for Chorion, which, until Alli stepped up as chairman last year, was a distinctly low- profile venture. It has, however, big potential. Quoted on AIM with a market value of £37m, it exploits crime and children’s book “brands” such as Noddy and Miss Marple across a range of platforms — television, film, publishing, licensing — and is keen to add to its properties.

That, of course, plays to Alli’s reputation as a street-smart rights negotiator. When he and his live-in partner, Charlie Parsons, sold Planet 24 to Carlton, they cannily retained the rights to their Survivor programme format. It went on to earn them another fortune in America.

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