Clegg only talks about his office hearing the Rennard rumours in his statement: “I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations were put to me”. ITV’s Lucy Manning and the Telegraph report that a LibDem raised concerns with Clegg personally in 2008:

“I was at an event with Nick Clegg and said Nick, you need to know that we have print journalists which I believe were, I think the Telegraph were chasing it, the Mail was chasing it and the News of the World was chasing it.

I said I believe there are three papers that are actively pursuing the Rennard story and he knew exactly what I meant, there was no ‘what are you talking about?’

As the party leader he knew exactly what I meant when I said it to him. He said, ‘Thank you very much, I will go and deal with it.’ And again nothing happened.”

Clegg’s clarification of his clarification needs…clarifying.

This from today’s Sunday Times magazine. Talk about amateur media management…

H/T @wallaceme

“I absolutely deny any suggestion of improper touching, nor did I invite a woman to join me in my room.

“I note that these alleged instances supposedly took place in public bars with other people present.

“I am disappointed and angry that anonymous accusations from several years ago are once again being made public in this manner in a clear attempt to damage my reputation.

“Let me reiterate that in 27 years working for the Liberal Democrat Party, not a single personal complaint was ever made against me to my knowledge.”

With the ironic timing of yesterday’s Pollard Review, LibDems are comparing the cover-up to the BBC’s handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal. What did Clegg’s office know and when?

Channel 4 have more on hands on LibDem wrong ‘un Lord Rennard:

re last night's C4News disclosures re Lib Dem influential Lord Rennard. More women contact us with serious sexual allegations—
Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) February 22, 2013

Guido has been on his case for years. Back in April 2010 he hinted at the pervy peer’s “skeletons in the cupboard”, the following month discussing the “one female trainee” employed to “service the needs of Lord Rennard”. Rennard faced multiple complainants. He relied on trying it on with ambitious women who unsurprisingly did not want to be implicated in scandal. The LibDem party hierarchy knew what he was like, forced him out and covered it up. The cover-up will be costly.

For what it was worth, the News of the World were pursuing the story with some vigour, but Rennard’s lawyers got them. With sources then refusing to go on the record, this was about as close as we could go in May 2009:

“Paul Burstow, Chief Whip in the House of Commons, phoned a number of female LibDem PPCs personally to assure them that Chris Rennard would no longer be in charge of their careers. A number of Cowley Street staffers are rejoicing at the departure of of the Chief Executive.  Mostly female staff…”

The Sunday papers are going to have a field day…

This one will run and run…

Guido has always maintained LibDem peer and expenses cheat Lord Rennard was a bit of a wrong un. The dam began to crack on C4 News last night:

Bridget Harris, a former special adviser to Mr Clegg, said that in a hotel bar at a party conference, the peer repeatedly touched her legs without permission. “I had to physically move away from him,” she said. “He suggested that we take our coffees upstairs to his room.” Mrs Harris said she reported the incident to party managers, but nothing was done.Another, anonymous, Lib Dem woman, told the channel that the peer once “shoved his hand down the back of my dress”.

The LibDems have finally launched an investigation. They should take a look at any influence he had on the candidate selection process…

See also: this is from 2009: Rennard Round-Up

UPDATE: Rennard has quit his policy role to fight allegations. When he stood down before it was for “family reasons”.

5Live are empty-chairing Maria Hutchings after she bottled this morning’s hustings. Quite how that works on radio we will find out. Unsurprisingly the LibDems are jumping on her no show, Tim Farron is crowing that the Tory machine have kept her away and party HQ has come up with a mildly amusing missing poster.

Meanwhile their own candidate Mike “Perhaps I’m a bit dull” Thornton has admitted he won’t give up his council seat if he becomes MP. Hardly brimming with confidence then. If only the Tory candidate was there to ask him about it…

UPDATE: George Hollingbery is stepping in for Hutchings.

Meet Glynn Davies-Dear, the weirdy-beardy former LibDem mayor of Eastleigh who has jumped ship to UKIP ahead of next-week’s by-election.

“Why did I leave the LibDems? I left in disgust at the lies and the broken promises. The Liberal Democrats no longer care about the people, they only care about themselves.”

Former LibDem councillor Andy Moore has also crossed the divide this afternoon. Ouch.

UPDATE: Amusingly he appears on a leaflet for Maria Hutchings.

@WikiGuido @GuidoFawkes But also features on the Tory leaflet for Maria Hutchings: ow.ly/i/1ylXs—
Stace (@stackee) February 20, 2013

Party funding figures for the last quarter are out. Excluding public money, between October and December last year the Tories received £3,309,109 in donations, Labour £2,592,885 and the LibDems just £570,959. The three biggest donors were Unite, Unison and the GMB, who funnelled over £1.5 million of their gold to you know who. Things don’t change…

LibDem wonk shop CentreForum is a breeding ground for SpAds and bag-carriers. It’s not all mansion taxes and jewellery duty for these yellow sages, believe it or not they are now actually calling for tax breaks for small and medium sized enterprises.

Proposals include ditching stamp duty on all share transactions, allowing ISAs to include shares traded on SME equity markets and reducing capital gains tax on shares. Cable dryly describes the report as “interesting”. What’s the betting we never hear of it again…