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Ever since William Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, the British have contributed more to modern medicine than any other people on earth. From antiseptics to antibiotics, from

brains to bowels, practitioners from our island nation have led the world. Now the Recovery team at Oxford has done it again. Their hard work and brilliance has proved that Dexamethasone, a

cheap and widely available steroid, will save up to a third of seriously ill Covid-19 patients from a terrible death. In this country alone, perhaps 5,000 victims would still be alive if

this drug had been in use. Around the world, Dexamethasone could yet save untold thousands of lives from coronavirus. Compare this genuine breakthrough with the false dawn heralded by

Hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug for which Donald Trump has made such extravagant claims. The Oxford Recovery trials also proved that Hydroxychloroquine had no benefits for Covid

patients. Not even the self-medicating American President could defy the medical facts. Now the US Food and Drug Administration has withdrawn authorisation for its use in combating Covid-19.

Where British scientists lead, others follow. So what will be the response from our most thriving industry — the culture of negativity that pours cold water on every positive development?

For as well as generating a never-ending stream of discoveries, the British are world champion naysayers. We are uniquely blessed with “soft power”, yet behave as though we were powerless.

While other nations boast of less remarkable achievements, we British contrive to run ourselves down relentlessly. Even worse, such negative thinking can paralyse positive action.   Take the

brouhaha about the merger of two ministries, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DfID). Few people know or care about which name is

engraved on a brass plate in Whitehall. But a great many, especially in the poorest regions of the planet, know and care about the British role in disasters and emergencies, in

nation-building and development. It is pointless to argue about ministerial titles and empire-building in Whitehall, when what matters is the job that officials do on the ground. The Prime

Minister has pledged that jobs and budgets will be protected; he will surely be held to account for these promises. Three of his predecessors have lined up to deplore the demise of DfID and

what they see as a takeover by the FCO. Doubtless political manoeuvres do lie behind it. The rise and rise of Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, has not passed unnoticed in Downing Street. By

bolstering the status of Dominic Raab, his de facto deputy, Boris Johnson is rebalancing the Cabinet, ensuring that his new rival at the Treasury does not get too big for his boots. The FCO

is now a major spending ministry again. Yet this rearranging of departmental deckchairs is an opportunity for a proper debate about how Britain projects its soft power around the world. What

should be our priorities for the 0.7 per cent of our, temporarily at least, shrinking GDP that we choose to devote to global philanthropy? Can we afford to go on blowing billions on

projects that are often hijacked by corrupt regimes or, like the “windy airport” at St Helena, were simply ill-conceived? Could we get more bungs (not bangs) for our buck? Will the mandarins

and spooks at the FCO now lord it over the do-gooders of DfID? What if they do? There is a useful debate to be had, but it does not need to be nasty. Above all, it should be short. Then the

politicians and pundits should let the diplomats and aid workers do their jobs.   Or consider the impact of Covid-19 on culture and the arts. In material terms, what officialdom calls “the

creative industries” last year contributed £112 billion to the economy. That figure will shrink drastically this year, with some sectors such as music and the performing arts losing more

than half their revenues. Far more attention has been given to the plight of tourism and hospitality, which employ about three million. Yet the two million jobs at risk in the creative

industries matter just as much. Restaurants, hotels and airlines come and go even in normal times, but when a theatre closes or an orchestra is disbanded, artistic skills and synergies are

lost forever. It is high time that one or two authentic creators — Sir Tom Stoppard or Sir Simon Rattle, say — marched into Downing Street to fight their corner. Anyone who doubts that soft

power is real should reflect on how rapidly Marcus Rashford was able to browbeat the Prime Minister into extending free school meals for 1.3 million children over the summer holidays. It is

possible that Boris Johnson was indeed unaware until yesterday of the campaign by the Manchester United footballer, as he claimed at the press conference. If so, it implies a bunker

mentality in No 10. The PM should get out more often. But the fact that he capitulated at the first whiff of the striker’s grapeshot shows how influential sport, like the arts, can be. If

Boris Johnson wants to go on projecting the soft power that continues to make Great Britain great, he needs to champion the people behind it. Under the pressure of a pandemic, billions have

been poured into scientific research such as the Oxford Recovery trials. A similar contribution to other creative industries would also pay dividends, not in treatments and vaccines, but in

cures for a deeper malaise than coronavirus: the culture of negativity that afflicts this extraordinary country.