by Chris Rogers BBC South West Political Editor

Iain Duncan Smith tried a nonchalant stroll in the tropical environment "Biome" of Cornwall's showpiece Eden Project, its plastic half-globes glinting like big fly's eyes in the October sun.

Despite the distance from London, questions still followed

With him, his wife Betsy, the quiet woman at the centre of one strand of his current difficulties, giving a sincere, if still stage-managed display of loyalty to a beleaguered husband. Tories love loyalty.

He chatted to sympathetic visitors, as awestruck by suddenly encountering the Leader of the Opposition as by the surrounding natural wonders.

But as he did so, political journalists were all penning the obvious line. That IDS had swapped one hothouse for another.

Politically, that was still true. The Tory spinmeisters knew only too well that there was no refuge in a rural idyll. The questions would follow, as they surely did.

Quiet Man

At the formal press conference in the fishing town of Looe, journalists dutifully sat through the praise for recent by-election winners, noted in passing the expressions of support for Britain's fishing industry and then eagerly leapt to the fray with a flurry of questions about the main players in "Betsygate".

The Duncan Smiths also visited a fish market in Looe

This is the wrong time to try to ambush the Quiet Man. He is well-rehearsed, turning every question back on the questioner and using the inquiry by Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Sir Philip Mawer to his advantage as a delaying tactic for any definite answers.

He did confirm to me afterwards that he is still prepared to sue anyone who publishes allegations in any detail, and remains confident he will be vindicated.

Local Tory activists in Cornwall hope so too.

I have spoken to a large number of local Tories at all political levels in the last few days.

No alternative?

Only one, who must of course remain nameless, says IDS is toast.

The rest display varying levels of equivocation, lukewarm about his leadership qualities and fitness for the purpose, but convinced that he must be given a chance, and anyway there's no real alternative.

You sense that the last thing they want is yet another leadership election.

Back in Eden's tropical jungle Biome, the leader points laughingly to the middle distance for the photographers.

For all the world, you think he's spotted a flying Heseltine, the erstwhile party glamour boy they nicknamed Tarzan, swinging in on a liana creeper.

No-one will ever know whether Michael Heseltine would have led the Conservatives to win another election.

Many Tories still fear the same is true about Iain Duncan Smith.