Italy’s new prime minister is a Latin version of Jacob Rees-Mogg

The people of the Eurozone’s third largest economy  – Italy –  yesterday evening became the first in western Europe to get what is popularly known as a ‘populist’ government. The imperial eurocracy will not – cannot – allow such a mortal threat to the EU from the patriotic people to survive – not in Italy. The markets are getting decidedly agitated. Game on.

Giuseppe Conte, a 53-year-old law professor at the University of Florence, who has never been involved in politics let alone been elected to the Italian Parliament, is Italian Prime Minister. More than two months after inconclusive elections on 4th March, the Italian President Sergio Mattarella was compelled through gritted teeth to ask Prof. Conte to head a populist coalition government of the alt-left Five Star Movement and the hard-right Lega.

As Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steven K. Bannon put it in an interview with the Turin daily La Stampa: Italy is now ‘the leader of the anti-establishment populist movement in Europe’ with a government that has ‘the overwhelming support of its people’.