By political correspondent Nick Assinder

Thirty four years ago Jack Straw visited Chile while it was run by Marxist leader Salvador Allende.

He denies ever taking party in any political activity whilst there, but there is little doubt he was a supporter of the Allende regime.

Now he is to decide the fate of the dictator who seized power away from the Marxists in the bloody coup in which Allende died.

At the same time he is coming under fierce attack over his plans to deny jury trials to certain offenders.

The House of Lords is threatening to kick out the proposal and pressure groups are accusing him of trampling over civil liberties.

It is sometimes hard to believe this is the same man who was the first left-wing leader of the National Union of Students and who once had a reputation as an activist.

For Mr Straw it has been a long road from left-wing student agitator to Home Secretary.

Out-doing Tories

And, during those 34 years, he has undergone the sort of political transformation that has marked the careers of so many Labour politicians.

He now has a reputation, particularly amongst human rights groups and left-wingers, as one of the most right-wing frontbenchers in the current cabinet.

His approach to travellers, modernising the criminal justice system, youth crime and drugs have all, at one time or another, seen him accused of trying to out-do the Tories.

In fact, the Home Secretary was never the wild-eyed loony lefty some have tried to paint him.

It has been claimed that, when he visited Chile in 1966, he spent an afternoon talking politics with Allende who he was claimed to have viewed as a bit of a hero.

He is also said to have demonstrated against General Pinochet in London.

He has denied the allegations, insisting that, during his one visit to Chile he never met Allende and never demonstrated against Pinochet in London or anywhere else.

Mr Straw comes from a leftist background - his grandfather was a Labour activist.

He recalls being on the first CND Aldermaston to London march when he was just 12 and claims to have made his first political speech a year later before joining the Labour Party at 15.

In 1967 he was elected president of the students' union at Leeds University before becoming president of the national union in 1969.

Soft-left

But he was not from the hard, Marxist left and later in his political career fought against the Trotskyite Militant tendency.

He is remembered by fellow students of having been rather earnest and missing out on all the traditional excitements of the 1960s.

This helped him no end when his son was recently found selling drugs and he could declare: "I was once passed a joint at a student meeting at Aston University. It was dopiness. I remember asking people what Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was all about."

He entered parliamentary politics in 1974 when he became special advisor to Barbara Castle before going on to win her Blackburn seat in 1979.

He immediately joined the left-wing Tribune group and embarked on a soft-left career.

But over the years he gradually moved towards the "modernisers" in the Labour Party and, by the time Neil Kinnock became leader, he was a fully paid-up member of the movement.

As shadow education spokesman he introduced the idea of teacher assessment and started building a formidable reputation as one of Labour's safest pair of hands.

By the time Tony Blair became leader, the transformation to New Labour was complete.

He is now seen as a strong contender as future New Labour leader.