FORMER Tory leader William Hague accused voters who support smaller parties of "opting out" of choosing a government while out on the campaign trail in Dudley South on Tuesday.

Mr Hague, also a former Foreign Secretary and leader of the House of Commons, visited Wall Heath to show his support for borough Conservative candidates Cllr Mike Wood (Dudley South) and Cllr Les Jones (Dudley North) and he told journalists the party's prospects in the General Election "are extremely good in Dudley".

In an interview with the News, he said: "There are still a lot of people who haven’t decided they’ve got to vote but we’re going to keep working hard on them.

"In Dudley our candidates all know the area extremely well; they are all well-known and work extremely hard. They’ve got a good standing with local voters. They’re the sort of people who should be members of Parliament."

Keen to achieve a Conservative majority when voters go to the polls on May 7 - Mr Hague, who is standing down from politics, added: "I’m campaigning as hard, even though I’m not a candidate, as in any election when I was a candidate because I really care about the result.

"I’ve got more time to support fine candidates like Mike and Les – that’s what I’m going to do all the way to polling day.

"I think we’ve turned round this country’s economy in the last five years – that’s all at stake."

He said the General Election offers people a chance to choose a Government and added: "People will wake up with David Cameron as Prime Minister or Ed Miliband trying to be Prime Minister with the Scottish nationalists holding him to ransom every day.

"That’s the choice in this election. Voting for other parties is really opting out of that choice.

"Dudley North and Dudley South are seats that will determine who people are waking up to see as Prime Minister on May 8. Anybody who votes for UKIP is in effect not taking part."

UKIP's candidate for Dudley South, Paul Brothwood, however, later hit back - saying: "That's a bizarre thing to say. Ofcom decided UKIP is a major party.

"We're the first party to win an election that wasn't Conservative or Labour for 100 years. I think he's forgetting how big UKIP is and how many seats we're expecting to win off him including Dudley South.

"In the more traditional Labour areas people have said they've never voted before and they'll be coming out on May 7 to vote UKIP."

Lord Ashcroft's poll on the constituency, which came out on Tuesday, however, has UKIP on 18 per cent with the Tories predicted to take victory with 39 per cent of the vote over the Labour Party which is tipped to poll 35 per cent.

Cllr Brothwood, however, added: "If you look at the YouGov poll we're on top with 36 per cent and in the last local election we either won or came second in every seat. The Conservatives came third - it was probably their worst election ever."