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Welcome to a rather unusual Spectator podcast.

I'm Fraser Nelson editor of The Spectator during the lockdown, we're asking our writers

to read their articles.

Normally, when we print the magazine, it is shared by our subscribers with their friends and

families, so you might get Matthew Parris' column, for example, read three or four times

for every one time it's printed. This sharing is

rather harder to do during the lockdown. So we've asked Matthew Paris, Toby Young and Isabel Hardman

to read out their articles for this week's magazine. First is Matthew. He's talking about

this strange trend, while anybody talking about the coronavirus

basically thinks that everything has vindicated whatever it was they thought in the first place.

There must be a quote from Shakespeare for this, but so far I haven't found it. It's the way we all of us

contrive to see in cosmic events, the evidence, the signs and portents for what we already

believed even before the cataclysm had occurred. These are the days of miracle and wonder,

sang Paul Simon, the way we look to a distant constellation

that's dying in the corner of the sky. These are the days of miracle and wonder, and don't cry,

baby, don't cry, don't cry. Somehow there never was a plague, earthquake, flood or epidemic

that was not also a sign that the human race must mend its ways,

...