Italy and England

After one of my rants about corruption in British politics someone posted that as a commentator on Italian politics I seemed to put up with quite a lot here. And it’s true: ‘sleaze’, which we might define as the political class feathering its own nest, legally or illegally, is rife here, and far worse than in England.

First let me say that I am a guest in this country. That does not mean that I think it wrong to criticise – it’s in the interests of Italy that someone who has experience of other countries should make his views known and anyway I pay taxes the same as anyone else. It’s just that I believe that you get the politicians, and the political system, that you deserve, and this is what the Italians chose. They can change it: Italy is a democracy.

Don’t get me wrong: when I read that poor families are having difficulty making it to the end of the month and that Clemente Mastella went to a football match in an Airbus paid for by the State (not illegal of course but definitely sleazy) my blood boils. But Britain and Italy are very different places:

1 Martin Luther. The Catholic countries of Europe, France, Italy and Spain, never got the Puritan morality thrust on them: ‘this is a sin and must be denounced!’. You would never get the typical News of the World headline ‘X in three-in-a-bed shame’. Here if someone gets into bed with a couple of supermodels it is not a cause for shame: good on him. Equally if you manage to screw something out of the state good luck.

2 Jealousy. I think this rather springs from the Catholic/protestant argument above. I remember Jeremy Clarkson having parked a brand new Ferrari convertible outside a pub and returning to find it full of spittle. Here if you have a nice car, people say ‘Complimenti’. They think that someone important should travel in a Maserati and have a supermodel on his arm. This is La Bella Figura. Not to do so would count against him.

3 For obvious reasons after the war the Italian Constitution did not place too much power centrally. Ironically giving powers to the regions has meant there are very few controls on the use of power centrally (and almost none in the regions where corruption is rife)

4 There is so much organised crime here that people can’t get excited about a bit of sleaze.

Lastly I think Britain should be an example of honesty and straight dealing. So I shall go on shooting my mouth off about sleaze whether it’s in Italy, England or anywhere else.