Robens' role

Allan Massie postulates that Alf Robens might have been a better Labour leader and prime minister than Harold Wilson and calls him "a good chairman of the National Coal Board" (Opinion, 17 August).

But we should not forget Robens' inept and disgraceful reaction to the Aberfan disaster in 1966, by initially blaming it on "natural unknown springs" despite there being common knowledge in the NCB; by his denial that the NCB was at fault until forced to do so in the last days of the official inquiry; and by his continued refusal to use NCB funds to remove the remaining tips so that, incredibly, 150,000 (2m in today's money) was raided from the publicly-subscribed disaster relief fund itself to do so.

Maybe he and Wilson were cut from the same cloth.

JOHN BIRKETT

Horseleys Park

St Andrews