It has been announced that Esther Rantzen is to stand as an 'anti-sleaze' candidate in Luton - despite the fact the current MP who was caught up in the scandal, will not be a candidate.

As a child I regularly watched Esther Rantzen's show, That's Life!  She was a genuine consumer champion as well as a great observer of life in Britain.  She made me and my family laugh along with millions of others.  She went on to help establish Childline, a charity that has done enormous good to help vulnerable abused and bullied children.

However, it seems to me that she has used this sorry saga of MPs' abuse of the expenses system to try to carve a new career for herself.  in itself, that wouldn't be a problem.  She may even have the ability to be a good MP.  But standing in a constituency where none of the other candidates has been implicated in the scandal, when she has absolutely no local connection, seems to me to be nothing more than a vanity exercise.  And for that reason, she has cheapened herself and her previously good reputation.  That makes me very sad.