Today

17 Nov 2022
Could Berlusconi end the war in Ukraine?

Ravenna, Italy Silvio Berlusconi believes that he alone can entice his old friend Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table and intends to give it a go before Christmas. The 86-year-old media tycoon and former Italian prime minister wants a peace deal, mediated by him, to be his political swansong. His private jet is already on standby. Internationally, the timing could not be better. Russia has suffered another military humiliation by abandoning the key city of Kherson and the Biden administration is reportedly telling Volodymyr Zelensky to think seriously about peace. Vittorio Sgarbi, Berlusconi’s confidant and now undersecretary for culture in Giorgia Meloni’s new government, has told me that Berlusconi thinks of himself as the only possible broker.

Could Berlusconi end the war in Ukraine?

Saturday

22 Oct 2022
How Mussolini invented fascism

Benito Mussolini, the revolutionary socialist inventor of fascism who came to power 100 years ago this week, was one of the most talked about figures of his day. Most of that talk was positive. Pope Pius XI called him ‘a gift from Providence’ to save Italy; the US ambassador to Rome, Washburn Child, ‘the greatest figure of his sphere and time’; and Winston Churchill, ‘the Roman genius’. Anita Loos, author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, wrote that he gave their epoque ‘its only flame of greatness’, and Cole Porter even wrote him into his 1934 hit song ‘You're the Top!’ with a line that went: ‘You're the Top! You're the great Houdini! You're the top! You're Mussolini!’. The Spectator, no less, in an exclusive interview, called him ‘the great Prime Minister of Italy’ who ‘weathered the storm and took the mighty ship of state triumphantly into harbour’.

How Mussolini invented fascism

Wednesday

19 Oct 2022
Giorgia Meloni shows Silvio Berlusconi who’s boss

Giorgia Meloni, who is about to become Italy’s first female prime minister, has won her first major battle. It was fought, not against her countless enemies, but against her ally Silvio Berlusconi. In a crucial victory, Meloni has forced Berlusconi, the four-time prime minister, to concede unequivocally that she – not he – is the boss of the right-wing coalition that won such a large majority at the general election last month. The 86-year-old rogue may well look these days like a waxwork model that has somehow come alive, but he remains a classic macho Italian man who finds it virtually impossible to take orders from women. Yet he has had to take orders from her. The battle began when 45-year-old Meloni – whose Brothers of Italy party has by far the most seats in the victorious right-wing coalition – refused to appoint a Berlusconi favourite, the glamorous Licia Ronzulli, to a senior cabinet post.

Giorgia Meloni shows Silvio Berlusconi who’s boss

Tuesday

27 Sep 2022
Giorgia Meloni can’t afford to fight the EU

Ravenna, Italy The victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy with a huge majority of seats in parliament has prompted the expected political indignation. It’s not just the international press, either. Yesterday, for instance, my 17-year-old son Francesco Winston told me that at his school – we live near Ravenna in the Red Romagna, a hotbed of ex-communists – all his companions were in mourning. Why, I asked? ‘They say she's going to abolish abortion,’ he explained. Why do they believe that? I asked. ‘They're badly informed,’ he replied. Bravo figlio mio, bravo! Meloni would not abort an unborn child herself – she told me when I interviewed her in Rome last month – but nor would she impose her view on any other woman. She has no plans to change Italy’s 1978 law which allows abortion on demand up to 13 weeks.

Giorgia Meloni can’t afford to fight the EU

Sunday

25 Sep 2022
Giorgia Meloni’s victory would be a triumph for Italian democracy

As Italians prepare to vote in today’s general election, the European Union has issued a warning – making clear that it stands ready to act. Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is widely expected to become prime minister at the head of a right-wing coalition. At an event in Princeton University, Ursula Von der Leyen, the EU president, said she is watching. 'If things go in a difficult direction, I've spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,' she said. So the unelected Ms Von der Leyen is talking about what she might do if confronted by Meloni being elected and getting 'difficult'. The 'tools' she refers to are those used to withhold funds from Hungary and Poland for alleged violations of what the European Court of Justice has termed the EU's 'common values such as the rule of law and solidarity', mainly in respect of the judiciary and media.

Giorgia Meloni’s victory would be a triumph for Italian democracy

Thursday

18 Aug 2022
Is Giorgia Meloni the most dangerous woman in Europe?

Rome Giorgia Meloni’s spacious office, on the top floor of Palazzo Montecitorio – Italy’s House of Commons – has large French windows that adjoin its own huge rooftop terrace with spectacular views of the Eternal City. You could hold the party of the century up there if you were so minded. Perhaps she will, if she wins. The polls suggest that Meloni, 45, is on the verge of becoming Italy’s new prime minister in next month’s snap election, which follows the collapse of Mario Draghi’s unelected national unity government. The Brothers of Italy, the party that Meloni co-founded just ten years ago, which got just 4 per cent at the last general election, leads the opinion polls as the senior partner in the coalition of the right, which includes Matteo Salvini’s radical-right Lega.

Is Giorgia Meloni the most dangerous woman in Europe?

Thursday

21 Jul 2022
Mario Draghi’s fall and the death of Italian left-wing populism

So, another unelected Italian government is collapsing, and the putatively pro-democratic media are all calling it a ‘dark day.’ In many ways, it is. Mario Draghi’s resignation (his second in the space of a week and this time for real) is bad news for Brussels and the Eurozone. The war in Ukraine was the catalyst for Draghi's fall as it tore apart Italy’s left-wing populist party, the Five Star Movement. That, in turn, destabilised Italy’s government. The Russian media will be ecstatic: first Boris, now this. But it is a great day for Italy's leading right-wing populist party – the post-fascist Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) – which is now in a very powerful position. Fratelli d'Italia continues to top the opinion polls and its leader Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Italy’s next prime minister.

Mario Draghi’s fall and the death of Italian left-wing populism

Saturday

18 Jun 2022
Could Giorgia Meloni become Italy’s next prime minister?

At the last Italian general election in 2018 the right-wing populist party, Fratelli d’Italia, got just 4 per cent of the vote. Last Sunday, at local elections in around 1,000 cities and towns, it led the coalition of the right to victory in nine out of 13 major cities which were won in the first round of voting, including Palermo and Genoa. A further 13 where no one got more than 50 per cent go to a second ballot on 26 June. Overall, right-wing candidates got 44 per cent of the vote compared to 42 per cent for left-wing candidates. But the key significance of the results is that they confirm Fratelli d’Italia has replaced the radical right Lega, led by Matteo Salvini, as the leading party of the Italian right.

Could Giorgia Meloni become Italy’s next prime minister?

Tuesday

31 May 2022
Boris is a saint compared to ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi

It was only a matter of time before someone really twisted the knife in and compared Boris ‘partygate’ Johnson to Silvio ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi. Rory Stewart, who is now an ex Tory and was rejected in the leadership contest won by Boris, has done just that. The British Prime Minister’s sins, he claims, make Britain feel like ‘Berlusconi's Italy’. Sorry Rory: no they don’t. The truth is that compared to Berlusconi, Boris is as pure as the driven snow. Yes, BoJo may once have invented a quote in an article for the Times, and he is all too often economical with the actualité on money and much else besides. But he has never been charged, let alone convicted, of a criminal offence, as far as we know. Il Cavaliere (The Knight), as his supporters call him, on the other hand, is a completely different kettle of fish.

Boris is a saint compared to ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi

Thursday

19 May 2022
Italy’s hostility to Nato is building

Ravenna, Italy The war in Ukraine has caused an unholy convergence of the left and right in Italy. While there is nothing formal so far about this alliance of enemies, it nevertheless threatens to destroy the unity of Nato. The most high-profile participant is -Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega – the party with the second-highest number of MPs in Italy’s parliament – which is invariably defined as ‘far right’. Salvini, who has been one of Vladimir Putin’s strongest supporters outside Russia, condemned the invasion of Ukraine and has now come out as a pacifist. He opposes Finland and Sweden joining Nato, or sending more arms to Ukraine, on the grounds that both would make peace less likely. Giuseppe Conte, leader of the alt-left Five Star Movement, which has the most MPs, is also on board – as is a chunk of the old left, especially if former communists.

Italy’s hostility to Nato is building

Saturday

19 Mar 2022

Thursday

17 Mar 2022
The war in Ukraine may benefit the populist right

Ravenna, Italy Ever since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, it’s been widely assumed that Europe’s right-wing populists are finished. Figures such as Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orban have all been cast as Putin’s useful idiots – defending his nefarious deeds because they saw him as a vital ideological ally. Now that Putin’s craven cruelty can no longer be excused, it’s argued, time is up: both for their sordid dance with Putin and for them. ‘The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin,’ writes Francis Fukuyama in a recent essay. But what if this prevailing analysis is mistaken? Might war in Ukraine make right-wing populists even more popular? It is a conflict that exposes the difference between bad nationalism, the imperialistic kind expressed by Putin, and good nationalism, the patriotic kind expressed by Ukraine: the desire to defend rather than impose one’s country, its way of life and culture.

The war in Ukraine may benefit the populist right

Saturday

5 Mar 2022
Do Russians support Putin’s war?

Everyone is calling the conflict in Ukraine Putin’s war and insisting that it has nothing to do with the Russians themselves. The nightmare would end – they tell us – if only Vladimir Putin were to disappear in a coup. They used to say the same thing not only about Adolf Hitler but also Benito Mussolini. Yet both the Fuhrer and the Duce would have been as powerless as the speakers at Hyde Park Corner if they had not enjoyed the willing consent of a critical mass of Germans and Italians. Meanwhile devout Catholics like my Italian wife recite Psalm 109 – the one used to curse the outstandingly evil for whom forgiveness is not required – and which urges the Lord to assassinate Putin asap and to ‘Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.

Do Russians support Putin’s war?

Sunday

20 Feb 2022
The pointless tyranny of Italy’s Covid pass

While most European countries, especially Britain, are relaxing their Covid restrictions, Italy which has the toughest of the lot, this week made them tougher still – even though the data shows they are futile. Perhaps it is because Italy is a country where fortune tellers and faith healers are a multi-billion pound industry that it has the most draconian vaccine passport regime in Europe. Either way, mass psychosis blinds its politicians and people from the truth. In the UK, bogus claims by government scientific advisers about the need for, and benefits of, lockdowns were in the end convincingly demolished and The Spectator played a significant role in the process. It is high time that similar bogus claims about vaccine passports are debunked as well.

The pointless tyranny of Italy’s Covid pass

Saturday

5 Feb 2022

Thursday

3 Feb 2022
Are wolves stalking us on the school run?

Dante's Beach, Ravenna The other morning, my wife Carla was driving home after the school run in her battered old Renault Trafic people-carrier when through the fog she saw what looked like a wolf. It was ambling across the fields, which were covered in white ice. The wolf was only about 50 metres away, so she pulled over and took a picture, which she texted to the local dog rescue centre. She then followed the animal as it continued on its way, parallel to the road, in the direction of our house. Eventually it vanished in the fog about half a mile from our front door. ‘Yes, it’s a young wolf,’ said the man from the rescue centre when my wife spoke to him on the phone. ‘You can tell it’s a wolf from its tail,’ he explained.

Are wolves stalking us on the school run?

Monday

31 Jan 2022
Sergio Mattarella is Italy’s captive president

Ah, those Italians! Italy's parliament spent last week trying and failing to elect a new president in seven secret ballots. Then, in the eighth ballot on Saturday evening, by a huge majority it re-elected the old one – Sergio Mattarella – against his will. Mattarella, 80, formerly of the post-communist Partito Democratico (PD) and now an independent, had repeatedly said he did not want to serve a second seven-year term. He had even moved out of the Quirinale – the presidential palace – and into a flat elsewhere in Rome. He was not actually a candidate because there are no formal candidates in an election for an Italian president whose powers, though limited, are often of crucial importance. The electorate – in this case, 951 senators and deputies and 58 regional delegates – simply votes for whoever they want as president by writing their name on a ballot paper.

Sergio Mattarella is Italy’s captive president

Wednesday

26 Jan 2022
Mario Draghi and the murky quest to find Italy’s next president

In ancient Rome, a diviner called a haruspex would observe the entrails of sacrificed sheep and poultry, especially their livers, to deduce the will of the gods. But even the finest haruspex would have a hard time deducing the will of the 951 parliamentarians and 58 regional delegates – the so-called grandi elettori – whose task this week is to elect Italy’s 13th president. Italian presidents, who serve for seven years, have largely ceremonial powers and their election is normally of little importance. This time, however, depending on the result, there could be at least one and possibly two seismic knock-on effects. First, the presidential election could force a snap general election which if the opinion polls are correct would see the coalition of the right return to power on its own for the first time since Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign in 2011.

Mario Draghi and the murky quest to find Italy’s next president

Saturday

15 Jan 2022

Thursday

13 Jan 2022
Can anyone beat Berlusconi to the Italian presidency?

Silvio ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi was a populist before the word became all the rage. An almost comically divisive figure, he makes spectacular off-the-cuff remarks which thrill his supporters and leave his enemies apoplectic. He called Barack Obama ‘tanned’. He advised a teenage girl that her best bet in life was to ‘marry a rich man’, and once said it is ‘better to stare at pretty girls than be gay’. In an interview with Boris Johnson and me in The Spectator in 2003, he insisted that the fascist dictator Mussolini did not kill his opponents, merely ‘sent them on holiday to the islands’. I wonder if Boris remembers that now. Still, unlike the current British prime minister, Silvio’s political fortunes appear to be in the ascendancy again in 2022.

Can anyone beat Berlusconi to the Italian presidency?

Saturday

8 Jan 2022
Why is Bilbo Baggins a fascist favourite?

If you were asked to think of a perfect fascist, never in a month of Sundays would you suggest Bilbo Baggins of Bag End. Hobbits such as he, after all, grow no more than four feet tall and have slightly pointed ears and a round jovial face. Their feet have leathery soles and are covered with brown fur. They hardly ever wear shoes, let alone jackboots. Hobbits dress in bright colours, favouring yellow and green, definitely not black; and though capable of great courage and amazing feats in the proper circumstances, they are a little shy. No creature, surely, could be further removed from the macho 'new man' with which the founder of fascism, Benito Mussolini was determined to replace the fascist class enemy: the pipe and slippers middle classes? And no creature's loyalties could be more different either.

Why is Bilbo Baggins a fascist favourite?

Thursday

25 Nov 2021
Why are Europe’s far-right parties so opposed to compulsory vaccination?

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Thanks to soaring infection rates in Europe, the war against Covid has entered a new phase, with the prospect of tougher restrictions and compulsory vaccination. Tens of thousands marched in protest through the streets of Vienna and Brussels at the weekend, with many chanting ‘Freedom’ and ‘Down with Dictatorship’. Prominent in their ranks were supporters of the far right, a.k.a. fascists. It is easy enough to understand why libertarians of the right such as Boris Johnson, and many, though by no means all, Tories would oppose the suspension of the fundamental civil liberties of the unvaccinated. But far-right fascists? Aren’t they the ones supposed to be hell-bent on the imposition of dictatorship and the suppression of freedom? In the case of the Covid vaccination, wouldn’t any fascists worth their salt be dead keen to force everyone to get jabbed — at the point of a bayonet if necessary? Not these days.

Why are Europe’s far-right parties so opposed to compulsory vaccination?

Friday

8 Oct 2021
Reports of the demise of Italian populism are greatly exaggerated

Britain’s newspapers have called the results of the local elections in Italy the death of populism. The Times, for example, grandly proclaims that the Italian elections this week ‘appear to have brought down the curtain on an experiment in anti-establishment politics that inspired populist movements around the world.’ The Guardian, meanwhile, wonders joyfully if what has occurred signals ‘a renaissance’ for the left. I am sorry to have to ruin the party but yet again the mainstream media have got it wrong. The fact that the Italian left, whose main component is the post-communist Partito Democratico (PD), retained Milan plus Bologna and Naples, where the left has governed for donkey’s years, is neither here nor there.

Reports of the demise of Italian populism are greatly exaggerated

Saturday

18 Sep 2021
Italy’s draconian vaccine laws are terrifyingly popular

In early August, Italy banned the unvaccinated from most forms of social life, then most forms of travel and now most forms of work. The unvaccinated are pariahs. Yet unlike in France, say, where hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to protest against compulsory vaccine passports, in Italy hardly anyone has protested against 'Il Green Pass' which is now the most draconian in Europe. The Italians have never been especially keen on liberty, and as a result liberty has never flourished in Italy. This, I think, explains why this removal the basic liberties – or rights, if we must – of unvaccinated Italians by Italy's unelected premier Mario Draghi is so hugely popular. On Thursday, Draghi's government of national unity issued a new decree extending 'Il Green Pass' to the entire workforce: 23 million Italians.

Italy’s draconian vaccine laws are terrifyingly popular

Thursday

19 Aug 2021
Churchill did admire Mussolini

In his ruthless demolition of Geoffrey Wheatcroft's new Churchill biography in last week's Spectator, the historian Andrew Roberts pours scorn on the ‘insinuation that Churchill had fascist leanings in the 1920s’ as it is not supported by ‘any actual evidence (for there is none)’. Well, however justified his hatchet job of Wheatcroft's book is in general, Roberts is deeply mistaken about Churchill and fascism. Like so many in the 1920s and well into the 1930s, from all sides of the political divide, Churchill was a fervent admirer of the former revolutionary socialist Benito Mussolini and the fascist movement which he founded in 1919. Fascism was a nationalist rather than internationalist revolutionary movement whose class war was not the Marxist one between rich and poor but a different one between producers and parasites — of whatever social class.

Churchill did admire Mussolini

Tuesday

3 Aug 2021
Why are only Italy’s ‘far right’ opposing vaccine passports?

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna Here is your starter for ten. Which Italian political party believes that individual liberty is sacred? Answer: the party invariably defined by the international media as ‘far right’ or ‘fascist’ and jointly Italy’s most popular party in the opinion polls: in other words, the Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy). Here in Italy, birthplace of fascism, the 44-year-old leader of the right wing Fratelli d’Italia – Giorgia Meloni – has been busy promoting distinctly anti-fascist values. In defence of human liberty, she has spoken out passionately against the decree issued on 22 July by Italian premier Mario Draghi which will introduce the ‘Green Pass’ to Italy. As of this Friday all Italians over the age of 12 will be banned from most enclosed public spaces and many open-air ones as well, unless they are equipped with this digital pass that proves they have had at least one Covid vaccine.

Why are only Italy’s ‘far right’ opposing vaccine passports?