In defence of 2020

In what I am trying to turn into a tradition, I usually take time at the end of the year to talk up the positives of the preceding 12 months. In 2017, I trumpeted the routing of Islamic State, a drop in measles deaths, and the spread of marriage equality. In 2018, I celebrated the expansion of healthcare in India, advances for cannabis decriminalisation around the world, and a record-smashing day for the England cricket team.

In 2019, I didn’t have to explain why everyone should be feeling upbeat; Jeremy Corbyn had just gone down to a hilarious landslide defeat. One of these days, I’ll stop watching videos of that exit poll coming in and laughing myself into bronchial impairment, but not today.

Dashing Swedish historian Johan Norberg — imagine PewDiePie if he’d never discovered Minecraft — has somewhat stolen my thunder this year. However, not to be outdone, I offer my own defence of 2020, with a list of 20 positive developments seen this year.