Former British finance minister and europhile Kenneth Clarke yesterday ruled himself out of the race to lead Britain's opposition Conservatives, immediately throwing his weight behind clear favourite Michael Howard.

"I think Michael will set a tone and a style for the party which gets us back into real politics," Clarke told Sky News.

"He is an experienced politician with all the right political skills," he added.

Clarke, 63, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last Tory government led by John Major, was seen as the person most likely to stand against Howard, a former interior minister and eurosceptic who threw his hat into the ring on Thursday.

Howard, 62, is so far the only Tory to announce his candidacy - doing so less than 24 hours after Iain Duncan Smith was ousted as leader.

Other Tory heavyweights have said they will not challenge Howard as the party seeks to reunite in the wake of Duncan Smith's removal.

"Ken Clarke's comments are further evidence of the party's determination to create a unified force," Howard said after the former chancellor announced he had no wish to lead the embattled party.

"I look forward to working with Ken to help bring to office a Conservative government willing to trust the people of this country," Howard added.

But Clarke ruled out a post in Howard's shadow cabinet, saying such a move would waste too much time trying to explain "where the differences were and where they weren't" with his colleagues, such as over Europe.

The deadline for leadership candidates to step forward is next Thursday, with the first round of voting to follow on November 11 if Howard is not the sole aspirant. Howard has already said he has the backing of 92 of the Tories' 165 lawmakers.

Howard is known as battle-hardened political bruiser with a hard-nosed approach to law and order.

He has been the Tories' finance critic, shadowing the work of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, but he remains best known for his 1993-97 stint as home secretary when Major was prime minister.

The Conservative Party, which spawned British political luminaries such as Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher in the last century, has been defeated twice in succession by Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour party and appears headed for a third drubbing in national polls, due by mid-2006 at the latest.

Howard insists he can turn around the Tories' fortunes.

"On one night in 1997, our majority disappeared. But what happened that one night can just as easily happen the other way in one night," he said in an interview with The Sun newspaper, published yesterday.

Howard said he was looking forward to taking on Blair: "I'm up for it. I'm very excited. I think this is the turning point," he told the tabloid.

"But I will do things my way. I expect everyone in the party to play their part in this team".

Announcing his candidacy Thursday, Howard upheld Duncan Smith's platform of calling for better pensions for the elderly, free university tuition and more police on the streets.

On foreign policy, he said the Conservatives would be internationalist, and that if it raised concerns about the European Union, it would not be because Tories were "little Englanders".

Tory lawmakers voted to oust Duncan Smith just two years into his leadership, after accusing him of being too ineffectual and failing to capitalise on Blair's falling popularity in the wake of the Iraq war.

Clarke had come second in a run-off election that saw Duncan Smith parachuted into power in 2001. – Sapa-AFP.