Now that the forces of evil have transformed Silvio Berlusconi into a condemned man, there remains just one person on the planet who can save Italy: Roger Scruton.
If the famous philosopher were just to come to Italy to deliver a single speech, his very words would be enough to set in motion la rivoluzione. That at least is the view of the Circolo Culturale Margaret Thatcher, a group whose mission it is to establish at long last, after all those centuries lived without one, a proper Anglo-Saxon Tory party in Italy. So far it has failed, but its members, like all true believers, have not lost their faith.
A year or so ago, Tullia Vivante, the presidentessa of the Thatcher Circle, an effervescent widow in her seventies, decided to enlist my support in getting Scruton to come to Venice. ‘There is no time to lose,’ she said. She had read an article I’d written on how Berlusconi, for all his faults, was Italy’s best hope: the only Italian politician with the charisma, clarity and drive necessary to impose on Italy the key conservative concept of freedom — freedom from the state.
‘I don’t know Scruton,’ I told her. ‘Will Charles Moore do? I know him quite well because he used to be my editor.’
To which she replied: ‘Charles who?’
‘The authorised biographer of the Dama di ferro!’ I explained.
‘Sì, va bene, va benissimo!’
Well, I did try Charles and he agreed in principle. But then in April Lady Thatcher died. That was that: he had even more on his plate than usual.
Anyway, for better or worse, it is Roger Scruton, not Charles Moore, with whom la signora Vivante is besotted, as the invitation she has just sent to the contemporary thinker who perhaps best articulates conservatism testifies.
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