TELL all you can as soon as you can. The wise advice that’s given to any individual or organisation facing allegations of scandal or cover-up must be ringing in the ears of the Liberal Democrat leadership this week.

From allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”

to claims of sexual harassment and, finally, to a direct complaint to the police, the case of Lord Rennard, who it must be said denies all improper conduct, has been handled badly by Nick Clegg and his colleagues.

At the start of the week Mr Clegg said he was “aware” of “general and non-specific allegations”, which makes it sound like someone had come to him complaining about a slight headache. Later he acknowledged the misconduct allegations were “in the background”, presumably like some irritating piped music.

But they weren’t trivial or frivolous issues.

They were claims of sexual harassment, hugely upsetting to the aggrieved women and potentially lethal to the party.

It seems incredible that they weren’t treated with greater urgency and it has left the Lib Dems looking at best insensitive and at worst evasive. Politicians are a cheerless lot, but if there is a more miserable-looking soul than Mr Clegg these days, I’ve yet to see them.

The lack of judgment and firm decisionmaking in this case is in stark contrast to the week’s other scandal – the forced resignation of Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic Cardinal Keith O’Brien after allegations of inappropriate – that word again – acts against priests in the 1980s.

Again, I was staggered, but this time by the speed with which this man of power was summarily dismissed. Remember, these were allegations only and most strenuously denied.

But Cardinal O’Brien still had to go.

What makes it all the more remarkable is the church’s record when dealing with priests guilty beyond doubt of the most appalling abuse.

Over decades in the UK and worldwide, church leaders have ignored, excused and sheltered perpetrators to the dismay of the millions who look to them for moral guidance and the thousands of decent clergy who bring spiritual and practical help to so many.

Their moral cowardice – there is no other way to describe it – has done more to damage the church than the so-called secularization of society that causes them so much heartache.

Cardinal O’Brien was sacrificed, but it is hard to feel sympathy for him. Once a liberal, he described homosexuals as “captives of sexual aberration”. He opposed medical research on embryos with the ludicrous claim that it would create human-animal hybrids.

He urged churchgoers to vote against any MP who supported abortion, forgetting the fairly obvious fact that MPs are there to represent a whole constituency, not a single faith.

While I am sure that many readers will regard this as the devil quoting scripture for his own ends, the saying about reaping what you sow springs to mind.

Cardinal O’Brien’s departure shows one thing, though: that allegations of sexual abuse and bullying are now so utterly toxic that no organisation, however powerful, can afford to ignore them. The fact that it has taken decades to achieve this is scant comfort to the voiceless, powerless victims whose sufferings were ignored for so long. But it’s a start.

Honesty can be painful but it is the only policy. In fact anything else would be “inappropriate behaviour”.