Councillor set to serve from Canada

A Tory councillor in Iain Duncan Smith's London constituency has refused to resign despite accepting a new job in Canada.

David Divine says he will "commute" between Nova Scotia and Waltham Forest, where he is an opposition member.

But he is facing demands to stand down from the council's Labour leader, who said it was "beneath contempt" to believe he could carry out his duties effectively from across the Atlantic.

It follows the case of Tory councillor Annabelle Blackmore who refused to resign from Maidstone council despite moving to Bermuda.

Mr Divine has been appointed visiting professor of black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He takes up the six-year post in January and has said that he plans to move his family there.

He was elected to Waltham Forest council last year, representing the Valley ward - part of Mr Duncan Smith's Chingford and Woodford Green constituency. He has about two and a half years of his fouryear term to run and receives about £8,000 a year in expenses.

Mr Divine says he plans to retain his house here and return for about five days a month to conduct council business. He said: "If I feel that it can't be done, then I will obviously do what a credible councillor does and initiate a by-election."

But Labour leader Clyde Loakes said: "To be representative you have got to be breathing the same air, getting on the same buses and using the same schools."