There seems little doubt now that Giorgia Meloni’s government will survive until 4 September and so become the longest lasting in the history of the Italian Republic. Nearly all of the 69 governments since the fall of the fascist dictatorship in 1945 have lasted little more than one year.
Next year, Meloni’s government also looks well set to become the first to complete a five-year mandate. And it is a pretty reasonable bet, too, that it will be the first ever to be re-elected. A second back-to-back term would mean that Italy’s first female prime minister must surely join the ranks of the great European leaders since the second world war.
Meloni’s critics say she has been all mouth and no trousers. But what she has done, above all, is bring stability to a country that has been a byword for chaos.
Now, however, for the first time, her grip on power is under threat and the Italian left and their many friends in the global media are pumping it for all it is worth.
This threat comes not from the Italian left, whose numerous parties remain incapable of uniting, and lack a compelling narrative or a charismatic leader. No, the threat comes from the right, in the shape of a former parachute regiment general called Roberto Vannacci. He is the new guy riding high in the polls.
General Vannacci is not an extreme right menace – or more right-wing than Meloni, as suggested by the global media. He is simply a new, charismatic voice singing from the same song sheet. More or less. And the Italians, being Italian, really do love a charismatic individual. He is also – and this may also be relevant – a dead ringer for a very famous Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi.
Meloni’s party Fratelli d’Italia is still well ahead of all other parties in the polls. But General Vannacci has planted his tanks on her lawn and could cause her trouble. Here’s why.
Elected an MEP in 2024 with her coalition partner La Lega he fell out with its leader Matteo Salvini and so in February 2026 founded his own party: Futuro Nazionale. This new party already has 5 per cent support in the polls which is only 1 per cent less than La Lega, and 3 per cent less than Forza Italia, the other main ally in Meloni’s coalition.
General Vannacci virtually overnight has therefore become a significant player in Italian politics.
His rise began in 2023, when he self-published a book which was a very funny no-nonsense assault on the sacred cows of the world of woke. Called Il Mondo al Contrario (The World Upside Down) it became a mega best-seller.
In the book, Vannucci said, among other things: ‘Dear homosexuals, you are not normal. Just accept it.’ He also wrote that the ‘physical features’ of a black female volleyball star born in Italy did not represent ‘italianità’ And that anyone has the right to shoot dead an intruder in their home, that illegal migrants should be deported immediately, and that people should be able to hurl insults at each other in the time-honoured way such as:
‘pederasta, invertito, sodomita, finocchio, frocio, ricchione, buliccio, femminiello, bardassa, caghineri, cupio, buggerone, checca, omofilo, uranista, culattone’
I am not going to translate these words but anyone interested can perhaps use Google to do so if it will permit them.
Needless to say Vannacci has been branded ‘far right’ by the global media just as prior to him they branded Meloni ‘far right’. Here is a recent headline in the supposedly conservative Telegraph about Vannacci: ‘The far-right former general raiding Meloni’s coalition’.
Four years ago, the Telegraph also branded Meloni ‘far right’ . Yet now it is calling her ‘conservative’ and Vannacci ‘far right’. God help us.
In truth, Vannacci is just the voice of the silent majority in Italy which is, yes, conservative on social, if not on economic issues.
So here is the lowdown on why he is a threat to Meloni.
Yes, at a pinch, it’s a bit like the conflict in Britain between Reform and Restore – and the accusation that Reform is not right-wing enough. But Reform is not in power, whereas Fratelli d’Italia is. The liberal left media’s cock-a-hoop take on Vannucci is this: Meloni cannot possibly win the next general election without the 5 per cent that his new party has stolen principally from her coalition partner Salvini’s La Lega.
Personally, I struggle to understand what they are on about because let’s face it: when push comes to shove Vannacci will ally with Meloni.
There is, though, one real danger: that the centre-right Forza Italia element of her coalition refuses to ally with Vannacci. And as a result, it abandons the coalition and teams up instead with – God forbid – the left. Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter Marina, who now calls the shots, is extremely centrist.
Such a schism may sound absurd but when Berlusconi, the founder of Forza Italia, was still alive he very nearly did a similar deal with the parties of the left. And yet, in the irony of ironies, when Berlusconi was in his prime, the very same global media relentlessly branded him ‘far right’ too.
Here’s my prediction though: Meloni and Vannacci will do a deal. Forza Italia will find a way to accept it. And she will win an unprecedented second term in 2027.
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