Yet, when I write in English it seems to me as if I were speaking of something else, or of someone else's country. But this time it’s even more easy to write my post, because what I would have liked to say about Italy’s new Democratic Party—that is the result of the merger of the ex-communist Left Democrats with Democracy and Freedom (Margherita), made up mainly of former Christian Democrats—and its first leader, the 52-year-old mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni, has been written already, by The Economist this week:
For the formidable task of pulling together Italy's heterogeneous centre-left, Walter Veltroni is an excellent choice. But what his country really needs in its next prime minister is somebody bold enough to open its fusty economy to greater competition. Little in Mr Veltroni's record suggests that he is the man for that job.
[Read the rest]
Ah, I was forgetting to say that, thanks to a draft-law proposed by the centre-left government on October 12 (if approved by the Parliament), this blog, alike 99% of Italy’s blogosphere, is likely to be closed down soon. In fact, the draft-law, aimed “to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet,” as famous blogger and comedian Beppe Grillo puts it, obliges anyone who has a website or a blog
> to record it with a register of the Communications Authority,
> to get a publishing company
> and to have a journalist who is on the register of professionals as the responsible director (see Beppe Grillo’s blog for further information).
What a great team we have. What an enlightened Left.
