Welcoming wouldn’t be the word I would use to describe Michael Howard. I didn’t expect that I would be forced to initiate a handshake with a glad-handing politician, or ever be thankful for the “what college, what course” questions I have come to loathe. But, in Michael Howard’s impersonal office, after his barbed comment on being interviewed – “Depends who’s doing it, I like some, I don’t like them all” – small talk is something to be relished.

His defensive attitude towards interviews seemed impenetrable as I try to break the ice, with my version of the same banal Cambridge questions. Initially, his responses are abrupt monosyllables, although the ice is briefly broken when he quips that, due to his Union presidency, his exam results were “not brilliant”. But Cambridge isn’t what either of us really want to talk about. Howard is first and foremost a politician, and, for him, perhaps this is an opportunity to justify his role in the Conservative party, past and present.

Indeed, it was Howard’s front bench re-shuffle in 2005 that made David Cameron and George Osbourne key figures in the party. This is something that one would expect him to wear as a blue badge of honour. Yet, when I ask if he knew that they were going to become such major players in the party, he only replies, “Yes.” I prompt him to expand, apprehensive that even political questions will receive monosyllabic answers. But he does elaborate, saying that the pair are “extraordinarily talented people”.

Although Howard, as Home Secretary, was lauded for his reduction in crime (“eighteen per cent,” he quickly informs me), Cameron’s current wave of popularity is not something that the former leader ever really experienced. Some claimed that Ann Widdecombe’s infamous comment that “there is something of the night about him,” did significant harm to his reputation. His first attempt to run as leader of the party in 1997 resulted in him coming last of five candidates. Perhaps such experiences explain the unexpected comment on the future of David Cameron: “I do think he will be Prime Minister. What I cannot say with certainty is whether he’ll win the next election. I think he has a very good chance but it depends on all sorts of things that might happen between now and then.”

He's spent many an interview explaining his defeats and appears resigned to answering questions on his failed leadership

As he voices such opinions, a natural air of experience and authority comes over him, but his defensiveness returns, well-practised; he talks as if he’s spent many an interview explaining his defeats and appears resigned to answering questions on his failed leadership. Yet, when I ask him what the he would identify as the problems of his tenure it takes him a few moments to answer. “Well, I only had eighteen months from the time I became leader until the General Election so I didn’t have a lot of time… David’s got much more time so he’s able to take a much more considered view of what the party needs to do and where it needs to go and, emm, I think he’s doing a really good job.”

Certainly Howard seems keen to stand up for the decisions he made: he tells me that he thought people would be interested in “the practical problems which they were facing, which is why we talked about schools, hospitals, crime, tax and, em, immigration.” The hesitation before he mentions immigration seems unconscious, and I didn’t notice it until I listened back to the interview. But it’s a disruption to the confident and assured defence of his decisions, perhaps indicating that Howard knows that his focus on immigration is considered one of his major errors. I wonder how many times, since the election, he has tried to justify his choice of policy.

Brown has done a lot of damage to the economy. I think he will find it quite difficult to make the transition to Prime Minister

Howard may have been outspoken since his defeat by Tony Blair, but surely but there are some things he admires in the way his rival has held office? There is a long pause and Howard looks away. Then, without a trace of hesitation, he answers, “Not much I’m afraid. I think he has squandered the best opportunity any Prime Minister has had in recent times because he came to office with a huge majority, with great public good will and with a real appetite for change and reform… and it’s all fallen to dust in his hands.”

Howard is confident that Gordon Brown will be the next Prime Minister. But he warns that Brown has done “a lot of damage to the economy; it hasn’t all become apparent yet and it may not become apparent for some time; these things take a long time to work their way through. He’s made Britain much less competitive than it used to be.” So how will Brown perform as Prime Minister? “I think he will find it quite difficult to make the transition to Prime Minister because, from what I gather, he works in a particular way in the treasury and he won’t be able to work that way when he becomes Prime Minister. I think he might find it quite difficult but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Although Howard is opinionated about the future of government, when the next General Election rolls round, he will step down. He says he is looking forward to his retirement, to “going to the cinema, watching football, doing the things I like to do.” But the defensive streak continues to the end, as I ask him if he has enjoyed his time in politics? “I didn’t really go into [politics] to enjoy it. I went into it to achieve things, to make a difference and that I think I’ve done.”

Howard's History

1941 – Born in Gorseinon, Wales, the son of a immigrant shopkeeper, Bernard Hecht (later anglicised to Howard)

1962 – Graduated with a 2:2 in Law from Peterhouse, having been President of the Union and a part of the ‘Cambridge Mafia’, a group including Ken Clarke and John Gummer

1966 – Contested and lost the general election in the safe Labour seat of Liverpool Edge Hill

1975 – Married Sandra Paul

1982 – Selected as the Conservative candidate for Folkestone & Hythe, entering Parliament a year later

1985 – Made Trade & Industry Secretary

1997 – As Home Secretary discussing the Prison Service, was famously asked the same question 12 times by Jeremy Paxman