Meanwhile in Italy

[Jog On]

What is Italy's political crisis all about? - BBC News

Italy is embroiled in a power struggle between Eurosceptic populists - winners of the March election - and pro-EU establishment politicians.

It took weeks of negotiations for a populist coalition to take shape, but the president has controversially vetoed it, so Italy is now back to square one.

The new prime minister-designate, Carlo Cottarelli, is an International Monetary Fund (IMF) veteran close to Brussels technocrats, solidly pro-euro and pro-austerity. He is known in Italy as "Mr Spending Review" and "Mr Scissors"

This stand-off is new territory for Italy, because populists won an unprecedented popular mandate to govern - the first time they have achieved that since WW2.

So the proposed caretaker government will have to tread carefully. Mr Cottarelli says new elections will be held in early 2019, or after August if he fails to survive a confidence vote. The latter appears the most likely.

Nice to see democracy in action...

[darmstadt]

Love this bit though:

This stand-off is new territory for Italy, because populists won an unprecedented popular mandate to govern - the first time they have achieved that since WW2.

I wonder which populists those were? Maybe the President didn't want to see any more people hanging from lamp posts...

[BR14]

Love this bit though:



I wonder which populists those were? Maybe the President didn't want to see any more people hanging from lamp posts...

they still have lamp posts? - i thought silvio melted them all down and sold them to Fiat

[jamesbrown]

Maybe the President didn't want to see any more people hanging from lamp posts...

Objectively, he's played this very badly indeed. Selective outrage about monetary union, but no such outrage about deporting 500k migrants. Technocrat PM dubbed Mr. Scissors. He literally couldn't have stuck his finger up at the electorate any more conspicuously. This is going to end well for Italy and the EU, I don't predict.

[Old Greg]

A nice fun Italy/ EU crisis should help with getting the UK's exit deal promptly approved by all EU members.

[sasguru]

A nice fun Italy/ EU crisis should help with getting the UK's exit deal promptly approved by all EU members.

The historical problem with populists is that the simple ideas by which they fire up their thicko base eventually get dashed on the rocks of complex reality.
From Mussolini's Fascists and the Nazis to today's rather less ambitious fantasists who dream of national renewal, the final result ends up the same: the ultimate destruction/weakening of the country.

[LondonManc]

The historical problem with populists is that the simple ideas by which they fire up their thicko base eventually get dashed on the rocks of complex reality.
From Mussolini's Fascists and the Nazis to today's rather less ambitious fantasists who dream of national renewal, the final result ends up the same: the ultimate destruction/weakening of the country.

Given the current state of the country, which you have dribbled on about ad nauseam, I'd be surprised that you weren't up for change if you weren't such a cretin.

Then again, you don't seem to be fond of democracy either, so it's no real surprise that you struggle to grasp the outcome of elections.

[original PM]

The historical problem with populists is that the simple ideas by which they fire up their thicko base eventually get dashed on the rocks of complex reality.
From Mussolini's Fascists and the Nazis to today's rather less ambitious fantasists who dream of national renewal, the final result ends up the same: the ultimate destruction/weakening of the country.

Why do you think people get bored or start to distrust large political organisations.

Ok you have Brexit - but the italians have been on the verge of looking to leave for a while, the dutch have sniffed around it, the french may have done but Macron's mum told him to play nicely with Auntie Angela.

Do you really believe it is the rank and file man on the street who is wrong as it seems to be those who look to breakaway.

Is it that they see the upper/middle class sucking on the teat and are resentful of their wealth? or do they see that that teat is only available to a few and it only provides sustenance because of the hard labour done by the man on the street.

And do you think that could be where the resentment comes from - no one is afraid of hard work but they get mighty pissed off when people take the fruits of that hard work and pass it onto someone else - especially when the person making that decision does not seem to have to abide by the same rules.

And if you dig deeper and deeper into that you may finally see why there is a distrust of large political unions - because at their core they seek only to serve those who rule at the expense of all others.

[sasguru]

Given the current state of the country, which you have dribbled on about ad nauseam, I'd be surprised that you weren't up for change if you weren't such a cretin.

Then again, you don't seem to be fond of democracy either, so it's no real surprise that you struggle to grasp the outcome of elections.

What are you wittering on about? I'm all for a real a.k.a hard Brexit.
I'd like to see Italy leave the Euro too, for added entertainment.

[sasguru]

Why do you think people get bored or start to distrust large political organisations.

Ok you have Brexit - but the italians have been on the verge of looking to leave for a while, the dutch have sniffed around it, the french may have done but Macron's mum told him to play nicely with Auntie Angela.

Do you really believe it is the rank and file man on the street who is wrong as it seems to be those who look to breakaway.

Is it that they see the upper/middle class sucking on the teat and are resentful of their wealth? or do they see that that teat is only available to a few and it only provides sustenance because of the hard labour done by the man on the street.

And do you think that could be where the resentment comes from - no one is afraid of hard work but they get mighty pissed off when people take the fruits of that hard work and pass it onto someone else - especially when the person making that decision does not seem to have to abide by the same rules.

And if you dig deeper and deeper into that you may finally see why there is a distrust of large political unions - because at their core they seek only to serve those who rule at the expense of all others.

Deal with it, snowflake. The rewards increasingly go to the cognitive elite, thickos aren't going to get a look in.
And as you're going discover, if you destroy the upper/middle class, it's only going to make you even poorer

That's exactly what I mean by populist stupidity - in Germany in the 30s it was rich Jews who were blamed. See how that ended up.
Germany's universities which used to rank among the finest in the world still haven't recovered.