It matters when someone doesn’t tell the truth.

It matters in our private lives and it matters in our public lives.

But does it matter enough to resign when you have been caught out telling porkies?

Now I’m going to say here and now that I don’t believe the that Southampton City Council leader Councillor Richard Williams should resign from his post after being slapped on the wrists by an inquiry report into standards.

The report concluded that Cllr Williams had indeed failed to live up to the standards expects of someone holding the office of councillor – specifically the Nolan Principles of Public Life.

It was this paper that exposed the leader when last year he announced one of his cabinet members was standing down due to ill health. He used the council’s press offices to make the statement, knowing it was not true. Cllr. Keith Morrell was not unwell, but had tendered his resignation due to differences as to how the authority to meet the shortfall in its budget.

Why the leader did not simply reveal the truth behind the resignation of a colleague we can only speculate. If he hoped that by camouflaging the decision with a veneer of health issues then the differences of opinion would not reflect badly on his administration he badly misjudged the situation. The lie he concocted quickly fell apart and the subsequent coverage and report into the affair has been far more damaging to his reputation.

That councillor Morrell subsequently left the Labour group and, along with fellow councillor Don Thomas, founded a new break-away party “Labour Against the Cuts” also underscores how badly Cllr Richards had misread the situation.

That the report was actually delivered over a month ago and was being sat on by everyone concerned, including the leader, has not played well also. His apology reported in these pages yesterday related to the telling of the fib, but might just as well have covered the feet-dragging in revealing the findings.

That Cllr Williams will not resign, as the Tory opposition group are demanding, is not surprising. I am minded to put the whole issue into the bracket of naivety rather than an out-right bid to hoodwink. But the council leader and those in his party who backed him over the issue knowing full well the truth of the matter need to take on board some important lessons from this sorry saga.

The public may not be terribly concerned – although they should be – that a spat in the city cabinet has led to a member resigning.

They may not be that bothered that the leader of the city spun a yarn rather than simply tell the truth.

The good folk of Southampton may not be inspired to protest over the fact council leaders sat on the bad-news-report for over a month before being forced to go public, again by headlines in this paper.

But collectively this creates a sorry and disturbing picture of a regime that is prepared to fib, to close ranks and bury bad news to protect its own image.