Lord Rennard: The key questions

As James observed last night, Nick Clegg’s statement on the Rennard allegations raised more questions than it answered. Lord Rennard continues to strenuously deny the claims of sexual harassment made on Channel 4 News last week and in other reports since. But the problem is that when allegations were being made and rumours were circulating, nothing was done, regardless of whether those claims would have been proven or not. And as Nick Clegg hasn’t closed down the row, here are five questions that the party and those examining it will want to answer:

1. There are discrepancies between the different accounts of when the Lib Dem leadership received the specific allegations from Channel 4. Cathy Newman says she first had a tip-off about this three years ago, and that the Channel 4 newsroom gave the party full details of the allegations to be broadcast two days before the broadcast. The programme’s news editor Ben De Pear tweeted: ‘we gave Lib Dems womens’ allegations 53 hrs before broadcast, they replied @18.59