We have chosen the right man and I think he will do very well

William Hague on Iain Duncan Smith

On stepping down as party leader, he said: "Many colleagues urged me to carry on. Iain Duncan Smith was one of them. He didn't want the job for himself.

"He was one of my most loyal colleagues and begged me to carry on.

"But I wasn't going to be persuaded on this occasion by Iain or any of the others because I had made up my mind and I think it was right."

Mr Hague praised his successor as "honest, well-informed, intelligent, thoughtful, hard working and right about everything he speaks about."

He said of Mr Duncan Smith: "We have chosen the right man and I think he will do very well."

Mr Hague recently accepted two business positions alongside his backbench role - as non-executive director of an engineering firm in his home town of Rotherham, and as political and economic adviser to JCB.

Asked whether he could be lured to accept a shadow frontbench post, he said: "I will take a lot of persuading."

Message difficulties

Mr Hague, 40, took over as party leader in 1997, after Labour swept to power for the first time in 18 years, but stood down after failing to make inroads into Labour's huge Commons majority.

Earlier this month, Mr Hague said Mr Duncan Smith could fare better at the next election.

"He's full of common sense policies and I think he will have a much greater chance of success at the next election than we ever had at the last election," he said.

He said he had failed to get his message across to voters because they had previously decided to give Labour "the benefit of the doubt".

Other people have been less impressed by Mr Duncan Smith's leadership qualities.

Nick Kent, the man responsible for co-ordinating Ken Clarke's Conservative leadership bid against Mr Duncan Smith, recently warned the party would "pay the price" for electing him.

He said Mr Duncan Smith appealed only to "nasty old people" - but he also said Mr Hague's reign had been the worst in the party's history, amounting to a "teenage cocktail of tabloid populism and raving anti-Europeanism."