Nicholas Farrell

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. Last month, he said that Putin had sent him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday and ‘a very sweet letter’ 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.