The Fluid Principles of Iain Duncan Smith - Has He Lost the Plot?

9.55.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Sep 2008

It has been reported that Iain Duncan Smith recently joined Walthamstow MP and greyhound owner, Neil Gerrard, and dog racing enthusiasts in a march to Walthamstow Town Hall to protest at the closure of the Stow, the 75 year old greyhound racing track that was sold off by its owners for redevelopment in a deal that was completed in Mid-August. Whilst staff and regulars are understandably disappointed, Chingford and Woodford Green Liberal Democrats are at a loss to fathom out what lies behind the support to the SOS (Save Our Stow) campaign by Duncan Smith.

Lib Dem parliamentary spokesman for Chingford and Woodford Green, Dr Geoff Seeff believes that the local MP is either cynically aligning himself with every protest group in the constituency in order to garner their votes at the next election or has lost the plot completely. Says Geoff "Whenever there is a threat of a closure of a facility, whether car parks, allotments, post office or now the dog racing track, Iain seems to want to take on the role of a white knight fighting for rights of the downtrodden. Whereas there may well be good grounds for opposing action initiated by a local authority or a state controlled business, social value is not one I would associate with the Tories and trust them to uphold. But, what is the principle for opposing the closure of a totally private enterprise which is no longer commercially viable and for whose land assets there is an alternative use? Does he or does he not believe in a free market economy?"

Geoff has sympathy for all those affected by the closure concludes that Iain Duncan Smith is misrepresenting his position since he knows perfectly well that the Stow cannot be saved. "Market forces are against it and even if he had to power to intervene he would not do so because that would be to go against the Tory grain. If he doesn't know that or thinks he can or should reverse the deal, then he is as delusional as Don Quixote!"