Will Lib Dems’ Jo eat words over Rennard?

Abeaming Jo Swinson was quick to take the credit for her party’s victory in the brecon and Radnorshire by-election.

Describing the Lib Dems as a ‘positive alternative’ after last Thursday’s poll, the party’s new leader said they ‘are winning again and on the up’.

but there was no sign on her victory parade of Lord Rennard, the party’s former chief executive, who was a key figure in the by-election campaign.

Rennard pounded the streets in the constituency, knocking on doors and distributing Lib Dem leaflets. Chris Davies, a Lib Dem meP, paid tribute to his work, tweeting: ‘glad to have helped in brecon with Chris (Lord) Rennard. He pulled out all the stops.’

This is the same Rennard who was accused by a number of women in 2007 of sexual harassment. as the party’s equalities spokeswoman at the time, Swinson investigated the accusations, although nothing happened. in fact, he wasn’t suspended until 2014 after a Channel 4 exposé of the allegations against him.

Rennard was readmitted to the party eight months later after an internal inquiry found the claims by four women were ‘broadly credible’, but not proven beyond reasonable doubt.

by now Swinson was unimpressed: ‘That Lord Rennard remains in the party, showing no remorse or contrition, while many of the women involved have left, fills me with sadness and anger,’ she wrote in 2017. ‘i do not want Lord Rennard to continue as a member of the party. He is not welcome.’

Unless he helps to win by-elections, ms Swinson?