The Westminster village would do well to listen to an emboldened Peter Hain

Peter Hain is Westminster's man of the moment. Fresh from his denunciation of the BBC over its decision to host Nick Griffin on Question Time, the Welsh Secretary tells me he has been inundated with letters and emails. Some were from people saying they would join, or rejoin, Labour because of his defiant stance, but many were "vitriolic, nasty emails" from supporters of the British National Party. The level of hatred took Hain back to 1970, when he received "green ink" threats over the campaign he backed to "stop the tour" of England by an all-white South African cricket team.

Hain is unrepentant and believes the "dangerous" move by Question Time will be a "turning point for the BNP" - echoing, in fact, the verdict of France's far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who compared Griffin's moment in the spotlight to his own "hour that changed everything" on French television in 1984. Whatever the anti-Griffin headlines in recent days, says Hain, a lifelong campaigner against apartheid and racism, in the long run the BBC has "lifted the taboo" of voting BNP.

So what does this independent-minded minister - who not for the first time was given licence to roam "off-message" in a crucial week - think the government should be doing between now and next year's election?

Seize the moment

Speaking to me in his office in Whitehall, Hain says he believes Labour can win a fourth term - but only by being bolder in fighting for its values. "The 50p on those earning more than £150,000 contrasts with the Tory policy of giving £200,000 to the 3,000 richest millionaires in Britain in the inheritance-tax cuts: there is no clearer dividing line. We should be reminding the electorate of that."

There is a sense of urgency in Hain's message. "We haven't got much time to catch up and to ignite a passion for Labour . . . This should be our era . . . As Obama has shown, it's an era for an activist government, not a passive one." He adds: "What we have to do is break through a sense of fed-upness over Labour longevity in power and the mistakes that we have made, and remind people of our massive achievements and get on the offensive."

Here, Hain declares that "endless triangulation - if it was ever the right thing to do, which I doubt - has had its day. We must not go back to Old Labour but we have got to move on from New Labour to win next time . . . It has always been a source of frustration for me, and now the chickens are coming home to roost, that there was allegedly a choice between winning over Middle Britain and appealing to our traditional constituency. We've ended up offending both."

Hain believes that there is no public appetite for a Tory-style, small-state solution to society's problems: "What the economic crisis has done, coinciding with the exhaustion and total failure of the free-market mantra, means that the tide is now flowing with the progressive constituency." But Gordon Brown is refusing to articulate it like that, isn't he? "Well, I think we should be; we all should be . . . We should be standing much taller and much prouder about our values . . . Too many of our policies we are almost shy about, from the minimum wage to the doubling of the health budget. These are things to be proud of."

Hain is unsurprised by reports - including a few on these pages - of alarm in Washington at David Cameron's extremist allies in Europe. "Cameron is a right-wing wolf in sheep's clothing," he says, before becoming the first cabinet minister to say that "the Obama administration rumbled that a while ago. Hillary Clinton and Obama know where Cameron is coming from: a plausible face with his 'compassionate conservatism'. But I notice that this is the same phrase that George Bush used, and look where that got us."

The Welsh Secretary then makes this unfashionable - but plausible - prediction: "A Cameron government will be the most right-wing government in postwar British history. He will make Thatcher look like a liberal, because the relish, the glee with which he will pursue swingeing cuts is going to devastate infrastructure and public services. And one of the reasons I think [the Tories are] beatable . . . is that I don't think the public has yet been alerted to the consequences of their cuts programme . . . I think people will go into the polling booth and say to themselves, 'Look, we may not think Gordon Brown is the showiest politician in the world, we may be a bit fed up with Labour, but actually we are really frightened about what the Tories will do to this country.'"

Hain genuinely seems to believe that - as with Labour in opposition in 1992 - exit polls "even on polling day" could show the Tories on course for victory, only for the government to scrape through to victory.

Full-blooded reform

However, if there is a hung parliament as some suggest, Labour will have to appeal to the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition. Much would then depend on Labour's record on political reform. Hain, a natural constitutional reformer, regrets that more has not been done. "I would have liked us to have pursued full-blooded House of Lords reform much earlier; the same goes for electoral reform." But, perhaps to the disappointment of some electoral reformers, Hain rejects calls for an election-day referendum on proportional representation, and supports the Prime Minister's recent pledge to hold a vote on the non-proportional AV system after the next election.

So, what of Labour's 1997 manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the issue? He lays the blame elsewhere. "Tony Blair should have done it, so I don't think you can blame Gordon for that." He lays down a challenge to the Lib Dems to decide on "what side of the progressive divide" they stand, and turn their fires on the Tories. He describes the party as "schizophrenic" over whether to attack Labour or the Tories.

Hain is a cabinet veteran - having served as secretary of state for Wales and Northern Ireland, secretary for work and pensions and leader of the House - and, unlike many of his younger colleagues, he has fought for the Labour movement in opposition. He is an ambitious politician who many believe has been vindicated in his criticism of the BBC and Question Time. Some may laugh at his belief that Labour can still win the next election, but if this maverick, unashamedly liberal politician's prediction that the BBC's BNP decision would end in tears is anything to go by, the Westminster village would do well to listen to him.

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