Reports of the demise of Italian populism are greatly exaggerated

Britain’s newspapers have called the results of the local elections in Italy the death of populism. The Times, for example, grandly proclaims that the Italian elections this week ‘appear to have brought down the curtain on an experiment in anti-establishment politics that inspired populist movements around the world.’ The Guardian, meanwhile, wonders joyfully if what has occurred signals ‘a renaissance’ for the left.

I am sorry to have to ruin the party but yet again the mainstream media have got it wrong.

The fact that the Italian left, whose main component is the post-communist Partito Democratico (PD), retained Milan plus Bologna and Naples, where the left has governed for donkey’s years, is neither here nor there. Nor will it be big news if the left wins in Rome, Turin and Trieste – which go to a second ballot later in October.

The right – led by populists – is ahead after the first round in Rome and Trieste.