Opposition whip 1995-96
Opposition spokesman on employment 1996-97
Parliamentary undersecretary of state, Wales, 1997-99
Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1999-01
Minister for energy and competitiveness in Europe, 2001
Minister for Europe, June 2001
Secretary of State for Wales since Oct. 2002
Leader of the House of Commons since June 2003
Chaiman of the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign which successfully stopped the South African cricket tour to Britain
Pioneered non-violent direct action tactics that produced the first victory for anti-apartheid protests
Even before he came to study at Sussex, Peter Hain (Political Science 1973) already had a national profile as a political activist. Now, three decades later, he is Welsh Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, and one of the rising stars of the Labour Government.
Waking up in the middle of the night, at age 10, to learn that your parents are being jailed for putting up anti-government posters, or to find security police ravaging through your personal belongings are hardly the childhood memories one would associate with a Cabinet Minister. And, yet, these are some of Peter Hain's most vivid recollections of his upbringing in South Africa.
"From a very early age, I realised that my upbringing was very different to that of my school friends. They had black servants. We had black friends. And of course their families had quite normal South African privileged lives, whereas we normally struggled," he recalls. His parents' increasing involvement in the opposition to Apartheid forced Peter's family to flee to London when he was only 16. Once in Britain, the young South African would take up the struggle against Apartheid. Still in his twenties, Peter sprang to prominence as an anti-apartheid campaigner, leading protests that first heavily disrupted the Springboks rugby tour and subsequently stopped the South African cricket tour to Britain in 1970. This active stance against apartheid would cost him dearly. In 1975, while he was a PhD student at Sussex, he was framed by the South African security services for a bank robbery in South West London. He was charged and later acquitted. Despite the devastating impact this episode had on his studies, Peter's time at Sussex would be marked by a far more positive experience, for it was on the Falmer campus where his political vision began to take shape.
"Sussex played an important part in my political evolution because during my time there I became more and more convinced that I wanted to be a member of the Labour party. I had always been a socialist, and therefore the Labour party was the place for me. I was always a political activist, but I hadn't had the chance to read the theory and the history until I came to Sussex, so the reading I did there was very valuable," he explains. And to this day, Peter is proud of the political centre-left vision he developed while at Sussex. "I am a 'libertarian socialist' committed to social justice, equal opportunities and personal liberty. I believe in a pluralist democracy: hence, devolution of power to Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, London - and in future, the English regions," he says.
Having played a leading role in the campaign to secure a 'Yes' vote in the 1997 referendum in Wales, the Welsh Secretary remains a passionate advocate of devolution and its impact on the Welsh people. "Devolution has brought self-pride. People know that decisions now on schools, in hospitals and pretty much all that matters in their daily lives are made in Wales. By devolving power, we have brought decision-making closer to the people and made government more efficient, more effective and more accountable," he explains. And key to the success of devolution, Peter argues, is partnership with the British state, nor isolation or independence. "I think devolution has buried separatism. The doctrine of separatism is an anathema and redundant in the modern age. The Welsh and the Scottish nationalists have done worse since devolution than they did before, and I think we've pulled the rug from under their feet because most people in Wales and Scotland want more control over their lives, but they don't want independence. I think this is what this is all about. And there is nothing wrong in celebrating national achievement, a common national culture and a sense of national pride and identity. Opinion polls show that Welsh people have a sense of dual identity, of both being Welsh and British," he adds.
Yet, in a country as remarkably diverse as Britain, the definition of 'Britishness' and 'British identity' is as mired in controversy as the dichotomy between devolution and nationalism. Both issues have, in fact, been prominent in the political debate since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. New Labour coined 'Cool Britania' in an attempt to depart from the traditional ideas of 'Britishness' and to rebrand Britain as progressive, forward-looking and diverse. "My view of Britain is based on solidarity and diversity. Britain now is a multicultural, multiethnic, multifaith society and I think we should be proud of that. And a modern Briton could be of any faith, of any colour and of any culture. But there is, nevertheless, a core British culture based on values of democracy, human rights, tolerance and social justice, which I think it's the essence of 'Britishness'," says Peter, in words that echo New Labour's notion of modern Britain.
Renowned for his outspokenness, however, Peter's views aren't always in accord with those of the party leadership. He has, on numerous occasions, publicly warned the Labour Government of the need to return to the party's grassroots and core Labour values, observations which won him the respect of many disenchanted party members. These comments haven't gone unnoticed by the media, keen to question the public's faith in the Government and the latter's loss of touch with their supporters. Yet, according to Peter, when looking for answers to the public's disengagement with politics, one must look beyond the Labour party. "We are nearly 7 years into government and people get bored and grumpy. But I think fundamentally there is respect for what we have achieved in the economy, there is respect for the money we are putting in the public services. Yes, I think we have a trust problem," he admits, "but the problem is wider than just us. It's all the political class, opposition, Government, the political media that operates in the Westminster bubble we are sitting in now. I think it's completely remote from the average citizen." Although he stops short of blaming the media for alienating the public from the political debate, his words betray the current tension between the Labour government and the media in the aftermath of events such as the Hutton report and the war against Iraq. "They [the public] see some of the way everything is debated in terms of a personality clash, or a split, or a gap, or some kind of media spin in the 24 hour media agenda which has a voracious appetite for a new angle, and sometimes a new dimension to a story. But what I find is that most people I talk to don't want that. All they want is an honest debate with hard questions put to whoever they are talking to, whether Labour, Tory or some other party. And they just get a fog of spin from a media that seems incapable of discussing politics."
And as he answers these questions with characteristic enthusiasm and charisma, one cannot but identify similarities with Tony Blair. It's hardly surprising, then, that he's been tipped by some on the left as a future prime minister.