Lord Rennard scandal: Why the mastermind behind the Lib Dems' rise to power is finding sorry the hardest word
It was once a truism that sorry was the hardest word to say. That is now bunkum unless you are Lord Rennard. He is finding it impossible to blurt the word out because he denies making unwanted sexual overtures to female members of the Liberal Democrat Party.
Lord Rennard
No one doubts that he sincerely believes this is true and the decision by the police not to prosecute him and the verdict by a lawyer appointed by the party that the claims were unlikely to be established beyond reasonable doubt does, in his mind, vindicate him.
While gratefully accepting the decision by Alistair Webb QC, Rennard has turned a deaf ear to the second part of the ruling that there was "broadly credible" evidence and that he should apologise.
Rennard is a clever man. He is the strategic mastermind behind the Lib Dems' rise to power in recent years. He is an establishment figure, fully enjoying being up front and centre with the great and the good. He is bright enough to know that if he apologises he will be branded a sex pest forever and backs will be turned.
He may have given a thought to Charles Saatchi who will always be known as a wife beater for accepting a police caution for assault after the picture appeared of his hands around Nigella Lawson's neck.
No matter what Saatchi spins in the unsavoury battle for his reputation, the fact that he accepted his wrongdoing in front of policemen can never be erased.
Rennard does not believe he is a groper, like Saatchi does not believe he was in the wrong when manhandling his wife. Each has his supporters. Saatchi's aberration was described as a "tiff". Some say that years ago it would never have been classed as assault.
And that is the point. A supporter of Rennard, the Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies, said: "This not Jimmy Savile. This is touching someone's leg six years ago at a meeting through clothing. This is the equivalent a few years ago of an Italian man pinching a woman's bottom." Chris Davies is aged 59.
His fellow Lib Dem Baroness Williams, aged 83, said "all this has been hopelessly exaggerated".
What Davies does not understand is a few years ago pinching a woman's bottom was just as wrong but in many cases women felt unable to complain and even if they did no action would have been taken.
Baroness Williams should know better. Even by saying it has been exaggregated she is admitting that something did happen. Williams grew up in a world where casual sexism was the way of the world but that has changed. How can we demand more women on the boards of FTSE companies if we accept that a bit of slap and tickle is just good old fashioned male fun?
On Monday lunchtime I watched the BBC politics show which debated the Rennard affair and the veteran MP and former Lib Dem leader, Menzies Campbell, said Rennard should say sorry if any offence was taken, in the spirit of compromise, and come back into the fold.
Now saying sorry is not normally a problem for politicians. Nick Clegg is no stranger to the word and David Cameron has apologised for most things the British did around the world during the days of empire.
However the Rennard affair has gone too far and in threatening to reveal embarrassing personal details about his accusers the peer is breaking one of the golden rules of politics: when in a hole put the spade down.
Chris Boffey is a former special adviser to the Labour government and has previously been a news editor of the Observer, Sunday Telegraph and the Mirror