Best of Peter Rhodes - December 21

THE longest night has passed. From now on, things can only get brighter. The year turns and the first snowdrops and balmy days are only a whisper away. Tonight, raise a toast to the winter solstice, just as your ancestors did a hundred generations ago, long before the missionaries arrived.

ACCORDING to ancient Mayan prophecy, the world was supposed to end on Friday. Question: If the ancient Mayans were so clever, where are they now?

FOXHUNTING is a cruel pastime. It is also illegal in its traditional form but the police seem unable to go after the lawbreakers and the Crown Prosecution Service seems unwilling to prosecute. That is why the RSPCA spent more than £300,000 bringing a successful prosecution against David Cameron's local hunt. The judge described it as "a quite staggering figure." He is right. But if the authorities refuse to enforce a law to prevent cruelty to animals, who but the RSPCA should step in? Most animal lovers will see this prosecution as a case of the RSPCA doing exactly what it is supposed to do. I will be sending them a cheque.

A CERTAIN sort of American is moved to tears by these five words: "From my cold dead hands." They are part of a longer slogan: "I'll give you my gun when you prise it from my cold, dead hands" dreamed up by the National Rifle Association. The five-word version was famously uttered in 2000 by the veteran actor Charlton Heston, addressing an NRA meeting. As he brandished an antique rifle high, well, shucks and goshdarn it, grown men broke down and sobbed. For although most Americans are pasty, overweight city dwellers, they still see themselves as lean, tanned frontiersmen with a Winchester on their arm and a Colt .45 on their hip. The rhetoric that goes with owning guns is all about freedom, democracy and the threat of foreign invaders. It is powerful, emotive stuff, as Heston's magnificent, and hideously misguided, speech showed. But this week the gun-control lobby who want a safer America have some terribly powerful words of their own. I urge them, when the rednecks, the gun manufacturers, the lobbyists and celebrities utter the five words "From my cold dead hands," to respond with nine simple words. They were spoken by an unnamed six-year-old girl who survived the Connecticut school massacre by pretending to be dead as Adam Lanza killed her classmates one by one: "Mummy, I'm okay but all my friends are dead."

And what do you say to that, Mr Heston?

I WROTE recently about the quandary a friend was having over what to give her pet turkeys for Christmas dinner. Thanks for all your suggestions. Pity so many of them included the words onion and sage.

WAS I the only one to suspect the Andrew Mitchell "Plebgate" affair, which so entertained the nation in the autumn, was a case of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story? Mitchell was not a lovable character. The Tory chief whip had no friends on the Labour benches and plenty of enemies among Tory MPs. So when this "toff" was accused of swearing at police officers and calling them "plebs" in a row over using the main gate in Downing Street, there was huge political pressure for him to go, coupled with the fury of the Police Federation.

And yet, as I pointed out in October, there was one big hole in the official account of what had happened. The police log claimed: "There were several members of public present . . . . The members of public looked visibly shocked."

Yet not one of these "visibly shocked" witnesses came forward. There was nothing on Twitter, no emailed images – even though this alleged fracas happened in one of the most photographed parts of London. It was all rather odd.

Now we learn that a police officer who allegedly posed as a civilian to give an account of Mitchell raging at the cops was not there. He has been suspended while the "validity" of his statement is checked. And still, no independent witnesses.

I remain visibly shocked.

INCIDENTALLY, after Watergate, Cheriegate, Camillagate and Horsegate, it is believed that Plebgate is the only scandal ending in "gate" which actually involved a gate.

THE gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is one of my heroes. He is not only totally dedicated to his cause but has great reserves of moral and physical courage. He also tells the truth. And the truth he tells us about the cack-handed new law to permit gay marriage is that the Government's attempt to ban the Church of England from conducting same-sex weddings will certainly be challenged in the courts. So that's straight-talking from Tatchell. And David Cameron's response is what, precisely?

A READER asks whether the money contributed by members of the Cabinet in the whip-round for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee gift can be reclaimed on expenses. Oh, the appalling cynicism of modern life. (I believe the answer is yes).