At the risk of giving the oxygen of publicity to old allegations, Councillor Hugh Rayner correctly states in his letter (‘We need fairness from our journalists’, Your Views, November 13) that I put up a robust defence and full explanation of my allowances claims in the last parliament, at the time.

Before the press was interested in the subject, I published my claims on my website. There was a series of independent inquiries into every MP’s claims and no fault was found with mine by any of those investigations. But mud always sticks.

Benjamin Liitlestone repeats the same old allegations (‘Betrayal will not be forgotten’, Your Views, November 13).

The story that my wife was running a homeopathy clinic at home was untrue — in fact, she rented rooms in clinics in Hendon and Camden at that time.

The figures were aggregated over a period of nine years.

When I changed the designation of my home it was to reflect the change in sitting hours from very late nights most of the time down to fewer late nights — and it reduced my claims, not increased them, for the most recent years, to a level equivalent to the London weighting allowance, which could not be claimed at the same time.

Turning to travel claims (again aggregated over nine years), the wrong assumption was that I did not go to Parliament on non-sitting days. I did, as that was where my office was and was where people wrote to me.

My mileage within the constituency was also ignored, travelling around the constituency to meet people and attend events.

The travel expenses total also included some official overseas travel — and the mileage comparator that the newspapers used was a neighbouring MP who was a minister, who did not claim much mileage as he had a ministerial car and driver, which I did not.

Nor did I oppose reform, but I had criticisms of some of the proposals, for example stopping women MPs claiming for taxis home after a late-night sitting, which seemed to me a safety issue.

Andrew Dismore

Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hendon