I have known of allegations of sexual pestering against Chris Rennard for at least five years, and I find it impossible to believe Nick Clegg has not known for longer.
But I am baffled as to what the current fuss is about. The allegations of which I know are not of criminal offences, but the sort of inappropriate workplace conduct which should lose you your job. And it was always my understanding that was why Rennard resigned as Lib Dem Chief Executive four years ago. Unless there are new allegations which are actually criminal (and I have still not heard that alleged) what is actually supposed to happen now?
Why the allegations about Rennard were not published at the time, I don’t know. All the senior political journalists knew of them. There are some things, like Prince Phillip’s love life or Jack Straw’s visits to a South London address, which are well known but our corporate media somehow decides to hold back on. One group of people who do know every detail of such matters are the Metropolitan Police’s close protection officers, one of whom allegedly committed suicide recently.
Several things are happening with the Rennard “news”. Clegg has lied. The Tory media have dug up very old, stale news especially for the Eastleigh by-election. The current hysteria about all sex-related allegations (lead news story – Rennard; next item some dodgy Archbishop; next item BBC/Savile) propels this bit of old nonsense effortlessly to the top of news programmes. Meanwhile the bankers are still getting all our money courtesy of the state, Israel is devastating Palestine, the Bahraini despots oppress their people, Saudi and the US stoke terrible war in Syria. But evidently none of that is nearly as important as Rennard’s alleged rather pathetic attempts to get laid.