Silent treatment

Roger Morgan in his review of Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan by Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds (“Mining a rich seam of history”, Books, 11 December) informs us that in 1951 Bevan “demonstrated his leftwing credentials” by refusing to address the Cambridge University Labour Club. I just do not understand the reasoning here. Surely it would have been much more effective for Bevan to have used his oratorical skills, and made his case, rather than “arguing that Cambridge was not the place for him”.

R. E. Rawles
Honorary research fellow in psychology
University College London