A few small positives | thearticle

As soon as the current coronavirus took hold in Europe, Isis, the world’s most lethal terrorist group advised its members and affiliates to stay away from our contagion-stricken continent in

case they too became infected. To their thinking, beheading their victims, blowing them up, running them over in vehicles, gunning them down or stabbing them to death is all the order of

the day. But they’d rather not feel too poorly as they’re doing it. So, with most of us safely cooped up at home, it seems we have won temporary respite from their murderous attentions.

Every crisis has its upside! Naturally, as religious fanatics, Isis has put our Covid-19 woes down to our evil western ways. Allah is punishing us for our sins: democracy, pluralism, gender

equality, human rights and civil liberties. Except…wait a minute. This virus is all over the world now, and one of the worst hit countries is run by decidedly ferocious followers of Allah, a

land notably lacking all the “sins” listed above — Iran. So how have they squared that little circle? As zealots they will surely find a way. Oppressive, totalitarian regimes everywhere

will find a way of blaming others for the calamities that they create, hence China’s refusal to accept responsibility for this global pandemic. It was quickly established that the source was

another bat virus which found its way into the feral animals being sold for food at a live market in Wuhan, just as the SARS outbreak is widely considered to have originated with civets

infected by an earlier bat virus and sold for meat in Chinese markets. Alternatively, Covid-19 might have gone straight from bats to humans without an intermediary host, because,

unsurprisingly, the Chinese eat bats too. But a few days ago a series of conspiracy-mongering tweets were posted by Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry, claiming that the

virus was actually spread by the US army, which participated in the Military World Games held in Wuhan last October. This risible propaganda was typical of his government. Of course no

sensible person believed it. (That leads to the question: why then do we believe them when they say they can be trusted with our 5G mobile network? But that’s another story.) In this dire

time of national and international emergency, with our lives turned upside down, our plans on hold and our human interactions badly disrupted, our faith is naturally invested in our

government’s effective and sage leadership. And with this in mind, my most reassuring thought is: thank God Almighty we are not being shepherded through the crisis by Jeremy Corbyn’s

Momentum-guided Labour Party. When I want to feel all warm inside, to help me get through these trying times, I remember how we Brits pulled together when it really mattered and told the

Marxists where to get off. Can you even imagine, in your worst nightmares, the alternative? Reader, times are tough, no doubt about it. But let’s stop for a moment and remember what we have

to be thankful for.