IT is an old and cheap trick to refuse to apologise for something you haven’t been asked to apologise for.

Councillor David Stoker is rightly shocked by a clothing allowance of “almost £13,000” for the chair and vice-chair of the county (HAS, May 11). I expect he is therefore perpetually eight times more shocked at the £102,000 a year taken by his Liberal Democrat Mayor – £500,000 to the Durham Liberal Democrats since 2009 – and will act accordingly.

What was actually misleading was his statement that “Lib Dems in Durham have exposed a shocking £12,000 clothing allowance given to local Labour councillors”. The statement has as little merit as someone suggesting that because a Devon Liberal Democrat councillor has claimed over £10,000 in allowances while living in the Philippines, all Liberal Democrats councillors only take allowances and don’t live in the areas they represent.

Finally, I applaud Councillor Stoker’s defence of his own allowance of £13,300 a year as fair. It is a welcome – if belated and post-election – endorsement of sensible and decent publicsector values at a time when his Liberal Democrat-Tory Government is condemning hard-working people similarly entitled to tax credits as scroungers, and hounding the elderly out of council houses with its bedroom tax – and worse.

Andrzej Olechnowicz, Durham