in your left_column template
change
Code:
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" class="tborder" [high]width="90%"[/high]>
to
Code:
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" class="tborder" [high]width="100%"[/high]>
I don't know why it doesn't work in IE, but I next to never use it, so I never think about it.