and you think you have it bad

Its election day – regional elections – and all parties are distancing themselves from whatever may happen.  Por old Silvio has been on telly alot this week – he wowed us with his self awareness on Rai 3, telling us that tv exposure means nothing, and then lamenting that Renzi and Salvini have 6 hours of telly exposure a week, and he has nothing, so he has decided to do the rounds.  But of course, he emphasised, tv means nothing – and Mediaset, his channels, are completely objective and fair handed when it comes to politics.   He then went on a trip round Italy raisin the old ‘communism’ scare stories, only to finish last night, by turning up at a hustings in Rome and endorsing the candidate – only to find out he had gone to wrong hustings and given a ringing endorsement to the centre left.

Renzi has announced that the vote is not a judegment on him.  Unfortunately it is, Matteo – because you have jumped in the deep end endorsing a candidate in Campania who has been published on the antimafia list of the ‘uncandidable’.  The candidate, who is already condemned for corruption, tells us that Renzi will just change the law to allow him to govern if he wins.

The whole sorry story of these elections, make the UK system seem the paragon of virtue.  The antimafia commission published the list of incandidabili on Friday, months late – so we have 18 candidates who are to be voted for, who are not even allowed to stand for elections.  A myriad of others have published election literature promising beer, coffee, presents etc if you vote for them – it’s not apparently vote buying, just a way of getting people interested in the elections.  In any other country they would have been deselected within minutes.  So, the results will be a reflection of what Italy thinks of its corrupt politicians, and meanwhile the Italians will stand in the bar and moan but do absolutely nothing.