Matteo Salvini moves on in his bid to become Tweedledee to JD Vance’s Tweedledum.
At the Lega congress yesterday he secured the leadership of his party until 2029 and declared that he wanted to become Home Secretary again otherwise there would be trouble.
He is riding the crest of a particularly nauseating wave. The congress has speeches from Orban, Geert Wilders and Marine le Pen – who had the nerve to liken herself to Martin Luther King. She played the victim, but omitted to mention whether she was guilty of the charges for which she was sentenced. Salvini of course has a vested interest here, what with the 49 million euros which went missing under the Lega’s protection. Lauding the Argentinian presidents chainsaw rant, Musk’s chainsaw rant, and having Musk himself via video link, telling the Congress that ‘He who wants to reduce the freedom of expression, is a Mussolin, a Stalin, a Hitler – the restrictions are an expression of fascism’ – pot kettle and a zero sense of irony.
Not to mention some classic scaremongering – that a immigration changes a country, and a country is where people live. ‘And with terrorism (here translatable as immigration), we will see mass killings in Europe, your friends, your families will be all at risk.’
The far right love in also included Gen vannacci – who notwithstanding a fair amount of ill feeling in the party – as given his Lega membership card, even though he is still talking about founding his own party, which shows more Salvini grasping at straws than understanding the future of the Lega.
Tweedledee announced he has spoken to Tweedledum about transport. Two countries with terrible public transport and no real solutions in sight. Nothing changing there.