Peter Rhodes on yellow vests, counting the Gang and the truth about Bronco Layne

A READER points out that my recent item on the 1950s TV Western, Bronco Lane, should read Layne. Mea Culpa, as they say in Dodge City.

INTERESTINGLY, Google throws up 32,900 references to Bronco Lane but only 14,100 to the correctly-spelled Bronco Layne. This is partly accounted for by the fact that Bronco Lane seems to be a popular name for residential developments in the United States. Cowboy builders, presumably.

MOVING swiftly on, my eye was caught by a pious little letter in the Daily Telegraph concerning the possible return of jihadi bride Shamima Begum. The writer says this issue is "not to do with the sort of person she is. It is to do with the sort of people we are." Ah, bless. Now, this would be deeply impressive if the writer regularly used the London Underground or Manchester Arena, or was one of the 3,000 missing Yazidi women whose families were slaughtered by Islamic State before they were dragged away into sex slavery. In fact, the writer lives in a sleepy little Bedfordshire village which has a clutch of "best kept" awards and a celebrated duck pond. How green, how pleasant, how peaceful, how enviably safe.

WHEN you are so far removed from the dusty front line between decency and barbarism, how easy it is to preach reconciliation to everybody else. Personally, I'd rather the decision on this IS woman's future is taken by somebody who is not interested in showing off his Christian forgiveness but who has seen what IS is capable of, and who thinks it's actually pretty damn important to consider the sort of person Shamima Begum may have become. As for "the sort of people we are," let's concentrate on being the sort of people who are sensible - and alive.

IT'S tricky writing about the Gang of Seven (eight? nine?) defection from the Labour Party. Things change overnight. By the time this appears they could be the Gang of 100. Or, if Jeremy Corbyn operated like some of his Irish or South American heroes, they might become the Gang of Six and then the Gang of Five and then the bodies would start popping up in the Thames. Gosh, we live in exciting times.

MEANWHILE, if your inner revolutionary punched the air when the mob in hi-viz jackets took to the streets of Paris, think again. On their latest outing the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) spotted a prominent Jew watching their protests and began chanting "Dirty Zionist" and "Go Back to Tel Aviv." Charmante. But then, without dwelling on the beastliness of the gendarmes working for the Nazis in the 1940s, anti-semitism has always been more obvious in France than in Britain. The trouble with the gilets jaunes in France is that nobody really knows what they stand for. Over there, the yellow vest is an enigma. Over here, it means the AA man has arrived.