It looks indeed as if Italy — the beating pulse of European civilisation — will be the first country in western Europe to fall to what’s popularly known as populism. Those who regard populism as an affirmation of democracy are pleased; those who regard it as a negation of democracy are appalled. The markets remain silent. For the moment.
The alt-left Five Star is on the verge of forming a coalition government with the hard-right Lega in the EU’s fourth largest economy, which has been stuck in more or less permanent stagnation since the global banking crisis of 2008. These two opposing expressions of popular revolt, described by the ever so civilised FT on Monday as ‘the modern barbarians’ at the gates of Rome, are busy in secret trying to find a politician who can be their prime minister and draft a contract of government which will not cause them to tear each other to shreds within months of taking office.
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