Wales@Westminster newslog

It's Wales@Westminster Newslog, BBC Wales' Parliamentary correspondent David Cornock's diary on political life. It's a two-way process though, so add your comments too.

Thursday 18 September

Question time
posted by David | 1325 BST | Add comment
It was a simple question, but it almost made Peter Hain blush: "When do you expect to become Labour leader?"

Mr Hain smiled and shook his head at the inquiry, from a political correspondent at a Commons lunch.

He told me recently, in an interview for a Radio Wales profile, that he doesn't see himself as particularly ambitious. He may be in a minority of one on that issue but it is easy to confuse workaholism with driven ambition.

But an intriguing question arose during the course of that profile.

Peter Hain gets much of his radicalism from his parents - truly inspirational people forced to leave South African because of their anti-apartheid campaigning.

But in a future Labour leadership election, would they vote for him? "We don't agree with everything he says and does," his mother Adelaine told me. "We're not New Labour," added his father, Walter, with a chuckle.

They sound a bit to the left of their son these days. "He doesn't like us to say that," says Adelaine, "but we think we are. But we understand as a Cabinet Minister he's got to mind his Ps and Qs a bit."

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