One of the few shadow secretaries of state who’s worked closely with the civil service, William Hague is less prone to diatribes about rampant government waste or politicised officials than some of his colleagues. “I believe in having a good, close and inclusive way of working with senior officials and private offices,” the former Welsh secretary told Civil Service World. “If ministers are clear about what they want, civil servants can be your allies. The Yes, Minister caricature is an effective picture of how the civil service deals with a weak minister, but I have none of the suspicions of the civil service that some ministers may have had in the past. I’m positively looking forward to working with the civil service again if we win the next election.”

Indeed, says Hague, “it’s quite evident that I got on well with my private office, because I married one of my private secretaries.” Hague met his wife, Ffion, when he asked her to teach him the Welsh national anthem; he was determined to avoid the humiliation that had befallen his predecessor as Welsh secretary, John Redwood, who was famously caught on camera cack-handedly miming the words. In 1997 Ffion left the civil service for a career in recruitment and charity management, and the two remain happily married. As Hague jokes: “I’m an extreme example of getting on well with your private office!”

The former Tory leader’s wry sense of humour has often served him well – particularly in the Commons, where he frequently skewered Blair at prime minister’s questions. “He does all his own jokes and has a finely-tuned sense of humour,” says Nigel Evans MP, Hague’s Welsh Office parliamentary private secretary. “Some of it is self-deprecatory, but he also has the comic’s ability to identify weaknesses in people and feed them back.”

Hague’s jesting, though, often conceals graver aims – and he says he’s serious about cosying up to the civil service. Ministers should “involve civil servants in their thinking. I want civil servants to succeed; that means taking an interest in recruitment, morale, training.” Asked about the service’s weaknesses, he replies: “In some departments there’s probably been a loss of capability, becoming reliant on consultants and outside experts, so some might struggle to deliver the expertise of the past.” He’s keen, however, to add that this is “an impression, and from opposition it’s hard to be sure”.

The shadow foreign secretary’s approach to management owes much to five years with the high-flying consultancy McKinsey. The firm’s former employees, Hague wrote in a 2003 Guardian article, are always recognisable “by the way they structure their thoughts. That comes from a very rigorous induction procedure”. The company is famed for its emphasis on numerical analytical skills – which Hague says proved helpful during his time as pensions minister – and for its clubby cadre of staff and alumni: “You are encouraged to believe that you belong to a special club of elite people,” Hague wrote.

Hague’s experience in business has left him with a pragmatic and informed approach to managing large organisations. “Good communication is vital; there has to be a shared sense of why you’re setting about any change,” he says. “And change should not be a permanent revolution. Necessary change needs to be followed by periods of stability, so you can see what is working: I’ve always been very critical of Whitehall reorganisations which sometimes take place on the whim of the prime minister and are often a substitute for policy delivery. Everything would ossify if you didn’t keep up with the modern world – but you have to give people breathing spaces.”

He gives himself few breathing spaces, however. Hague is “very focused in his approach”, says Evans. “His attitude is very professional and disciplined; you can see that in his keeping fit, even in his drinking Ginseng tea. I only ever once took him into the [Commons] Stranger’s Bar, and he would only have half a pint, then went off to meet Ffion. I think he’s very, very controlled in everything he does.”

This is, of course, a very different picture from that painted by Hague during his time leading the Conservative Party, when he attracted ridicule by campaigning in a baseball cap, visiting the Notting Hill Carnival, and boasting about drinking 14 pints of beer regularly during his youth. Indeed, much of his behaviour during his 1997-2001 tenure as leader seemed to clash with his own nature and instincts. Factional struggles against the ambitious Michael Portillo, and a campaign that sealed the Tories’ reputation as the ‘nasty party’ did not help his cause.

Perhaps his rise had simply been too fast. After speaking, aged 16, from the platform at the 1977 Conservative conference – when Margaret Thatcher suggested he might be a new William Pitt the Younger – Hague became both president of the Oxford Union and of the university’s Conservative association, then got an MBA before joining McKinsey. Elected in 1989 to represent Richmond in North Yorkshire, he became PPS to chancellor Norman Lamont, followed by a stint as minister for pensions and social security and, from 1995, Welsh secretary.

On Labour’s 1997 victory, Hague first agreed to back former home secretary Michael Howard for the leadership, before dramatically changing his mind and putting himself forward. Aged 36, he won convincingly – but many now believe that he peaked too early, and should have let Howard lose the next, doomed election before bidding for the top job. “His ability is formidable; he’s a very balanced and candid presenter,” says former chancellor Lord Howe. “The sadness is that he put himself up for the leadership too early. Of all those people who put their hats in the ring, he most deserved an opportunity at the right time.”

After losing the 2001 election, Hague rejected offers of shadow posts and threw himself into highly lucrative work as a speaker and author – including as biographer of his hero, Pitt the Younger. But on Cameron’s 2005 accession, he accepted the job of shadow foreign secretary and, subsequently, ‘senior member’ of the shadow cabinet: deputy leader in all but name.

A lifelong Eurosceptic, Hague has pledged to rethink Britain’s commitment to signing the Lisbon Treaty. “We are committed to restore national control to social and employment law [sic]”, he told the Telegraph in April. He has also promised to hold a strategic defence review and establish a National Security Council chaired by the prime minister, and is highly critical of Labour’s coordination of overseas operations. There has been a “chronic failure to institutionalise cross-departmental working” he told the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) last month, promising that the new security council will be “buttressed by cross-departmental teams supporting it and covering the whole range of national security issues.” A determined hawk – and a longtime admirer of America’s neo-conservatives – Hague would also take a tough line on the UK’s troubled relationships with nations such as Iran and North Korea.

So under a Tory government the FCO would have a lot of work on its hands. It would, however, find its arm strengthened. “I don’t think the FCO has had a sufficiently leading role in government for the last 12 years. It’s been through some difficult times,” Hague told Civil Service World, pursuing a theme in his IISS speech, when he called for the FCO to take “its rightful place at the centre of decision-making”.

Hague emphasises that the FCO’s growth will not involve subsuming the Department for International Development. “We have restated our commitment to a separate department; that is not on the agenda,” he says (see p5, p23). Nonetheless, he is committed to “ensuring that the FCO’s policymaking capacity is there for the long term” – and his own position as a key Conservative figure would give the Foreign Office more heft than it has been able to muster in a Labour government dominated by Number 10 and the Treasury.

If William Hague ends up leading the FCO, its staff will be discomfited by both a huge workload and a new set of rather radical policies – particularly on Europe. But those bitter pills will be sweetened by growing departmental influence and a foreign secretary widely praised as a good manager, a shrewd strategist – and a cracking joker.