For the Liberal Democrats, the Rennard affair was bad enough, particularly blowing up in the middle of the Eastleigh by-election; the way it has so far been handled from a crisis management point of view has made it a lot worse. The problem for the party is that prevarication, twisting in the wind and changes of mind seem to have been far more in evidence than specific, decisive action. First, the line seemed to be that Mr Clegg did not know about the allegations, so presumably he couldn’t have been expected to have taken action, then it seemed he did know but only about ‘general concerns’, now it is alleged many senior party figures were aware of more specific complaints.
Meanwhile a whistleblowing system designed to encourage women to come forward if they have any complaints of sexual harassment turned out to be run by the wife of a key party aide – so hardly independent.
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