So the post-mortem sets in, with the ‘extreme’* left wiped out in this election. They’re blaming the ‘moderate’ PDs, who were undoubtedly the main challengers to Berlusconi. The theory is, put simply, that PD leader Walter Veltroni’s strategy of excluding them from any possible coalition consigned them to the wasted vote category – meaning that […]

Tree huggers, eco-warriors, and stuffy scientists pushing for aviation taxes were all celebrating last night at the news that Silvio Berlusconi and his right-of-centre party the Pdl had won a landslide victory in the Italian elections. Or at least they should have been. A central plank in Berlusconi’s election campaign was the refusal to sell […]

All the major parties have stressed, during this election campaign, that Italy faces huge challenges ushered in by globalisation. The way to confront this differs, depending upon your political persuasion, but the challenge can’t be ignored. Lucky for Italy that they have some of the most up-to-date and competitive entrepreneurs in the world. One sector, […]

Amongst other thorny issues largely ignored by the two major parties competing in this weekend’s general election is gay marriage. Veltroni and Berlusconi have studiously avoided being drawn into the issue. Veltroni’s party, filled with a sizeable proportion of theo-cons (including the cilice wearing Opus Dei senator Paola Binetti, who in an interview aired during […]

This Monkey has neither the time nor the inclination to follow up on Berlusconi’s latest gaffs. Given that we’re in an election, they’re bursting forth at an incredible rate. I couldn’t resist, though, drawing your attention, dear reader, to this letter, sent by blogger Andrea Baldi, in response to one of Berlusconi’s ‘humorous’ pronouncements. The […]

So far only Walter Veltroni of the Partito Democratico and Enrico Boselli of the Italian Socialist party have responded to the question posed by the authoratitive (and innovative) economics website La Voce: “If elected Prime Minister, what will you do against the Mafia?” Before getting into Veltroni’s response (ignoring Boselli, as his electoral support is […]

By chance I was re-reading Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality, coming across this passage as an advertising van for the Partito Democratico passed by my window, with Walter Veltroni’s face plastered across it. “Are you objecting that advertising and propoganda cannot be compared, because one serves commerce and the other ideology? You understand nothing. Some one […]

A satirical cartoon in last Friday’s il manifesto, by one of Italy’s leading cartoonists Vauro, has caused something of an international incident – no mean feat, given the general apathy towards the Italian election campaign both at home and abroad. The cartoon, which pictures a loosely disguised Fiamma Nirenstein, a journalist and commentator running as […]

Much sniggering has been done internationally (and here in Italy) at the recent judgement by the Corte di Cassazione (or supreme court) that grasping one’s ‘attributi’ in public is an offence punishable by a fine. In a country where it’s a common superstition that grasping one’s ‘palle’ wards off bad-luck, this is bad news for […]