Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2002, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a politician. He entered Parliament 10 years ago

inheriting his seat from that distinguished Tory bruiser Norman Tebit.

Less forceful in tone but similar in his views of Europe, he became a backbench

rebel. This role undoubtedly helped him to win a place in William Haig's Shadow Cabinet,

and when his party, two elections and two leaders down needed someone else in charge, it chose him.

So the quiet man, son of a fearless fighter pilot and a ballerina who'd originally chosen the army and the defense industry as a career

took on the mantle of Peel, Disraeli, Shaftesbury, Churchill and Thatcher.

I'm passionate about my politics, he says.

I set a course and I stick to it and I will not be shaken off it

he is the leader of Her Majesty's opposition Ian Duncan Smith it was certainly an unpredictable rise to the top, Ian.

I mean, you hadn't, like your immediate predecessor stood on the steps of number 10

and said, I want to be Prime Minister, had you?

No, I hadn't.

I came to politics rather late, actually.

I have to say, as a young man I wasn't

completely obsessed with politics I was interested in it and I chosen a different

course and it was later on that I decided to go into politics. But how surprise were

you you know just over a year ago to find

yourself a leader? I went away after William had decided to step down that morning. I waited to talk

to him, to try and, you know, persuade him that maybe he could go on.

...