What do all these evil maniacs have in common?

More bad publicity for the Islamic State’s ‘Kafir Tiny Tots and Babycare Service’. A burka-clad madwoman wandering through the streets of Moscow swinging a decapitated toddler’s head while shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ is just the kind of image the company wished to dispel. You begin to doubt its vetting procedures for potential nannies, and also whether or not it has a valid Investors In People certificate.

The less than conscientious nanny was from Samarkand in Uzbekistan (which last had a half-decent government in about 1990). ‘I want your death,’ she screamed at the Muscovites, waving the poor child’s head about. The madwoman is now in prison and already, I daresay, the BBC and the Guardian are formulating a means by which her actions can be conveniently detached from the faith of which she is a particularly vigorous adherent. Nothing to do with Islam. Just madness. As if these two states of mind were mutually exclusive.