He was often one of those at the heart of John Major's parliamentary troubles over Europe and is now one of two current shadow cabinet members to have voted against the Maastricht Treaty during John Major's troubled premiership. The other nay-sayer was Bernard Jenkin, now Duncan Smith's campaign manager.

He backed John Redwood when he challenged Major for the Tory leadership in 1995. Later, he proposed Redwood for the top job in the 1997 contest.

Duncan Smith has done what many in the Tory Party wanted William Hague to do, and ruled out ever joining the single European currency. At the same time he has attempted to calm criticism over his intense Euroscepticism by declaring he would like a referendum on the issue in this parliament.

He has also made clear that he would not allow Euro-enthusiasts to remain on his frontbench during a referendum campaign.

More widely, he is an unapologetic right-winger who has regularly been painted as the natural inheritor of the mantle of Norman Tebbit, who he succeeded in his Chingford seat: as well as his deep Euroscepticism Duncan Smith is a dry-as-dust monetarist and on the socially authoritarian wing of the party, pro-capital punishment, in favour of the return of caning and fiercely anti-"political correctness".