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Jacqui Smith has admitted she was not up to being Home Secretary - and should have been given some proper training before she was handed the job.

Ms Smith, who is likely to be remembered for claiming expenses for a porn film watched by her husband, said any success she had was down to luck rather than skill.

She added: "When I became Home Secretary I'd never run a major organisation. I hope I did a good job but if I did it was more by luck than by any kind of development of skills.

"I think we should have been better trained.

"I think there should have been more induction."

When asked by Total Politics magazine if she had worried she was not up to the job, she replied: "Every single time I was appointed to a ministerial job I thought that. I didn't sleep for a week in 1999 when I got my ministerial job."

Ms Smith, who was initially a schools minister, suffered a series of scandals and crises when she became Home Secretary.

She was widely regarded as being very nervous when she had to deal with a terror attack on her first day in the job in 2007.

Ms Smith admitted during the interview: "I'm not sure I understood, I'm ashamed to say, when I first heard it, quite how serious it was."

She was also blamed for the Damian Green affair, when police raided the Tory MP's Commons office while hunting the source of leaks from the Home Office.

The ex-teacher was one of the first MPs embarrassed by her expenses after she listed a room in her sister's house as her main home when her family lived in a detached house.

It was then revealed husband Richard Timney watched a porn film and she put it on expenses. She resigned last month.