Bad luck mate - look at the polls. We've been taxed and charged to the hilt for years. The populists will have it now. They don't even need to do anything. The incompetence and corruption of the current government does their entire job for them. The election will be like stealing candy from a baby. Only that candy will have a bitter taste once chewed.

Red and Blue Army!

Sounds about right to me. I don't know enough about Meloni to have a firm view, but the speech linked in this thread was worthy of Trump. Full of populist passion and void of actual ideas.

Selling people things based on their prejudices and convincing them that anything is better than what they have, has been the stock-in-trade of opposition politicians since the dawn of time.

Only idiots think noise will actually produce solutions when faced with the actual realities of governing.

Time will tell whether the rhetoric will give way to practical ideas which work. Having Berlusconi as a partner isn't a good omen for that.

I was briefly in Rome, Naples and Cagliari recently and sensed none of the tensions that some of the political reporting seems to suggest. People seemed happy, prosperous and integrated. I accept I was mainly in tourist areas, but did travel on local transport into less salubrious districts.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

The new Italian PM says she is leading a centre-right unity coalition, that's if she can get it together.

The 'markets' have not over-reacted and its now cheaper to borrow money for Italy than it is for the UK.

Clumsy and out of touch with reality, that would be more of a judgement on us, not Sweden or Italy.

Sorry BBC and others, but 'Il Duce' is not riding again.

And Italian trains, as ever, will be reliably un-punctual.

Italian trains are generally very punctual, cheap and clean.

UK could do worse than implement the same mix of public and private that Italy has in the train system.

Responsibility Deficit Disorder is a medical condition. Symptoms include inability to be corrected when wrong, false sense of superiority, desire to share personal info no else cares about, general hubris. It's a medical issue rather than pure arrogance.

Perhaps you should have gone further South on the mainland. Are you calling her an idiot? Or just those that have the audacity to want change and place their vote on the right?

Ignoring simple rules is up there as a national sport for Italians, along with football and tax evasion.

A stairway to Heaven and a Highway to Hell give some indication of expected traffic numbers