• I WAS shocked and appalled to read the comments by the Hampstead Conservative agent, David Douglas, (Estate named after ex-MP who has homes obsession – What about Geoffrey? March 15).

To link the names of former MP Frank Dobson and that of Geoffrey Finsberg is pretty insulting to Frank Dobson, who as is shown in your report fought as a council leader, MP and health minister for the welfare and benefit of both his constituents and the country as a whole.

Mr Douglas’s sarcastic comments about the naming of a council block are misguided and irrelevant because the name was chosen by the tenants and not the council, which proves how popular Frank still is.

I had the misfortune to move into the Hampstead constituency when Geoffrey Finsberg was the MP and he was the most useless one I have ever known (with the notable exception of the late Reginald Maudling MP for Barnet, who was notorious for never answering his constituents letters, leaving all that to his agent).

I have an extensive file of correspondence with Geoffrey Finsberg, whose responses were, without exception, totally unsatisfactory, irrespective of the matters raised, and he seemed almost wilfully oblivious to the plight of anyone who did not vote for him or toe the party line.

He was well known as an acolyte of Margaret Thatcher and it was insulting to his constituents when he received a knighthood for his services, not to the constituency but to the Tory party, which said it all. Mr Douglas’s comments about Frank Dobson are – to quote him – “disrespectful”.

At the time Finsberg was knighted I was furious and it proved to me how twisted the honours system is when it is applied to politicians. He did nothing for Hampstead that benefited the residents and certainly did not deserve any form of local recognition just for long service.

Compared with the late delightful and humane Ben Whitaker and, latterly, Glenda Jackson and the current incumbent, Tulip Siddiq MP, Finsberg was a stodgy, self-satisfied, smug, unmovable party apparatchik and deserves to be forgotten.

JOHN STRATTON, NW3