Hain's fall from grace is the story of Labour

Mr Hain's tragedy is not quite that he may soon lose his job over dodgy deputy leadership accounts. It's not even that he spent £200,000 to come fifth out of six. It's that he was a man shining a light who somehow let it go out.

In his twenties and thirties, Hain was a hero of mine. With his Stop the Seventy Tour, he did as much as anyone to isolate apartheid. He was framed by the South Africans for a bank robbery, and successfully defended himself in a British court. And all that before he entered Labour politics.

As the commentator Anthony Barnett points out, it couldn't have been more different to the "thinktank, special-adviser, where-aremycufflinks?" trajectory of today's young politicians. In office Hain could have become a major figure. But he compromised too much.

As a minister, Hain was never trusted by the New Labour wing, because of his occasional licensed excursions into progressiveness (such as calling for higher taxes, or a crackdown on the arms industry.)

But over the past few years he has become increasingly isolated from the Labour Left, too. They sensed he was being used rather as New Labour used John Prescott - a token presence, deployed every so often to show the Government hadn't totally lost touch with its roots.

In this capacity, Hain was wheeled out for some of Tony Blair's dirtier jobs, such as defending the Government after Iraq. Had he resigned over a war he surely opposed, it's possible he could last year have mounted a leadership challenge strong enough to force Gordon Brown to give him a top job.

Instead, he stayed in office, kicking around the lower reaches of the Cabinet and no longer making progressive speeches. Nothing symbolises the descent better than his acceptance, in his deputy leadership campaign, of what some might call "laundered money". Of course it's a scandal, deeply suggestive of the rule-weariness and arrogance of a government too long in power. Of course it's ironic that a prime minister proclaiming clean politics finds himself surrounded by sleaze.

But actually the general taint of money-related concealment around Labour might save Hain: if he goes, so, probably, do Harriet Harman and Wendy Alexander, who have similar problems.

And it's Hain's personal backstory, as much as the discreditable donations themselves, which could do for him. He has little credibility, and few friends to rally round. You might even call the story of what's happened to Peter Hain the story of what's happened to Labour.