By Nyta Mann BBC News Online political correspondent

Critics accuse Peter Hain of being a sell-out. Not so, he says. He is simply in a different role compared to his rebel days.

I'm not anybody's 'ite', I've never accepted a label Peter Hain on whether he is a Blairite

As an anti-apartheid campaigner he became a direct action hero, leading protests against the 1970 South African cricket tour and becoming a target of the security services.

As an opposition backbencher he became a leading member of Labour's soft left, clashing with Gordon Brown along the way.

Now he is in the cabinet as Welsh secretary, promoted in the wake of Estelle Morris's resignation.

There are old backbench colleagues and Labour activists who grumble, sometimes jealously, at his ascent.

"I think the left generally and party members in particular find it difficult to come to terms with power," he says.

Different roles

"There's an oppositionalism in Labour's whole history, for all sorts of good reasons, which means people actually find it more difficult and uncomfortable wrestling with the problems of power because they have to confront difficult choices and live with outcomes that are not optimal."

Peter Hain back in his early anti-apartheid days

Is he referring to compromises he's had to make to get to his current position?

"That's a very stereotypical way of looking at it," he objects. "What I think is you're actually playing a different role."

"I'm just as supportive of the editor of Tribune saying what he wants to say about the government, or a demonstrator calling for tougher policies on the environment, and I can imagine myself in that situation. It's different roles."

He acknowledges that "you do get some very cynical people at the top of politics", but they enter the field not to betray but to do the best they can by the ideals they hold.

Compromise is the art of government, "but unless you have the same drive and vision to change, there's no point in you being there."

Not in it for the limo

"I have a motto which is 'Can I make a difference or not?' If you can't, well, driving around in the ministerial limo is fine but that's not what I'm here to do or why I'm working a 90-hour week.

"I want to change things. That's tough and hard, it involves difficult choices and you live with things, but ultimately you've got to stick to your beliefs and integrity."

Yes I lost some street cred, if you like, on that. But politics is a long game On heading Alun Michael's campaign to lead the Welsh Assembly

It sounds as though the minister is saying that if he'd stuck with his attitudes from the 1990s, he wouldn't be where he is now.

"I don't know about that," he says. "If I'd decided that the world was changing and I wasn't going to change, I might be playing an honourable role on the backbenches, sort of irritating the government.

"But there are people who do that very well - and I think it's good that they do because they keep us on our toes."

Backbench nuisance

That is, in fact, precisely the role he played in his early Commons years, annoying the Labour leadership over Europe, clashing with Gordon Brown on economic policy and launching pamphlet attacks from the backbenches against the then shadow chancellor.

"But I think in retrospect he was right because what he was concerned to do was to make sure that Labour established the economic credibility to govern, and he and Tony have done that brilliantly," Mr Hain says now.

Back then, Mr Brown found him enough of a nuisance to plot to oust him as chairman of the influential Tribune group of MPs.

Of those past rows Mr Hain says: "They're part of politics and who's to say who's right and wrong there. But in terms of the economic trajectory, Gordon was right."

Relations between the two are now warm. "I get on well with Gordon, great admirer of his ... He is one of the most formidable intellects in politics, with the most clear strategic vision."

Euro-switch

It is Peter Hain's position on the euro that appears most markedly different from the old days, moving from Maastricht rebel to one of the most pro voices in government. A notable and career-enhancing switch, cynical observers allege.

Gordon Brown: They used to row but now relations are warm

"I know people say that but the thing I've always felt about that debate is the euro hadn't happened in the early 1990s when I was debating over the Maastricht Bill," he points out.

"In terms of some of the things that are quoted back at me - you can look in the book I wrote at the time and in Hansard - I always said I was in favour of the single currency in principle."

It was, it is true, the tight Maastricht criteria he opposed. On this front Mr Brown and others can be said to have caught up with him, calling for reform of the Eurozone's stability pact.

Playing the long game

The act that has perhaps most affected how he is seen these days, however, is one of loyalty. At Blair's behest, Hain led the campaign to make Alun Michael Labour's candidate to lead the Welsh Assembly, against grassroots favourite Rhodri Morgan.

He says he and Morgan get on well, having had a strong prior friendship. "Every family has its spats but you don't fall out," is how he describes the divisive campaign.

Nevertheless it had a lasting effect in tainting Mr Hain in the eyes of Labour activists who saw it as the sign of a politician ambitious enough to do dirty jobs for the leadership, painting him into a Blairite corner.

"I'm not anybody's '-ite', I've never accepted a label," he says. "I've always said I'm on the left of the movement and described myself as a libertarian socialist, to the extent that I've always said what I felt."

"It was a tough period for all of us," he says of the episode. "Yes I lost some street cred, if you like, on that. But politics is a long game. I remember my dad telling me that during the anti-apartheid struggle in Pretoria, 'Whatever you do in the future, remember it's a long game'."

Licensed rebel

It hasn't all been straight down the line loyalty, however. Mr Hain is seen as a licensed rebel, speaking out of turn enough to keep a reputation as an off-centre voice but not to get publicly slapped down by Number Ten.

"Can I make a difference or not?"

"Being in the cabinet and government means being a team player. It doesn't work if you're not," he says.

"But we have gradually over the last year or two recognised that in communicating with the public we've got to be more open."

"I suppose my style is to tend to say things as I see them, but not in a disloyal, divisive or factional way."

So what is he up to?

Is he, as some analysts and Westminster bar-flies suggest, tightrope-walking in pursuit of some crafty gameplan for future advancement, if not to Number Ten itself then to next best role of future kingmaker?

"I just saw some of this stuff," he laughs, referring to the press cuttings his department regularly monitors.

"I've been around in the media-political profile scene since the age of 19. I've never been in a situation where I read stuff about myself that bears less resemblance to reality as it does now."

So it's all rubbish, then.

"Anybody who thinks that far ahead beyond what they're doing now is not only unwise, but bound to be disappointed."