Two peas in a pod.

To adapt St Matthew's gospel: 'by their friends ye shall know them'. 

Blair famously enjoyed Berlusconi's hospitality:

and the support and friendship of the media tycoon Murdoch. Margaret Thatcher was another admirer, considering him 'probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell. I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved.' How right, she was. Like Renzi, Blair was adept at capturing the public mood, however asinine - 'The People's Princess' immediately springs to mind - a talent which led him to win three successive elections. This was good for the Labour Party but disastrous for the interests it was founded to represent. 

  Just as Tony Blair abolished Clause Four, so paving the way for Miliband to cut the direct link between trade union members and their former political wing, Renzi the 'Rottamatore' proposes to scrap the 'old-fashioned' socialist ideas associated with the Democratic Party.  To give one example, he intends abolishing article 18 of the employment law which prevents employers firing workers without good cause.  A provision which clearly has a stultifying effect on Italy's progress towards that brave new world we Anglo-Saxons so cheerfully inhabit, where any impediment to the interests of globalised finance is to be removed as speedily as possible.

  Not only were Berlusconi and Blair friends, the former Italian leader, according to one of his inner circle also has time for Renzi: 'Ha apprezzato lo stile del suo linguaggio, diretto, chiaro, comprensibile da tutti, manifestazione di un uomo dal carattere deciso, e si sa che Berlusconi è attratto da persone così.' [He has appreciated his way of talking - direct, clear, easily understood - characteristic of a someone decisive, and one knows this sort of person appeals to Berlusconi.] 

  Together, they have devised a new electoral system, the so-called Italicum, which is as undemocratic as the Porcellum it proposes replacing. In the Italian system, parliamentary candidates are imposed directly by party headquarters rather than being chosen by the constituency party from a list supplied by the party.  Each constituency is assigned a number of seats proportionate to its percentage of the total population of Italy. The winning coalition receives at least 55% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the Italian equivalent of the House of Commons, whilst the remaining seats are proportionally divided between the minority parties. The seats won by each party in the Chamber of Deputies are then allocated at constituency level. Candidates on each party's list are ranked in order of priority, so if a party wins for example ten seats, the first ten candidates on its list receive seats in parliament.

   In the UK it is possible to decide not to vote for a particular parliamentary candidate because, although you support his party, you don't rate the individual highly. In Italy you can only vote for the party, not the individual MP. Even worse, under the proposed change to the electoral system a party would need to obtain at least 8% of the votes cast nationally in order to have any candidates elected. This is a fundamental affront to democracy. Much as I despise their racist and xenophobic policies, the Northern League enjoys considerable support in northern Italy. Under the British system they would, quite rightly, elect representatives to parliament. However, as they enjoy less than eight per cent of the national vote, averaged across the whole of the country, under the proposed system they would not. If the Italicum operated in the UK I guess there would be no Scottish Nationalist MPs which, whether or not one agrees with that party's aims, would clearly deny their supporters a voice.

   Back in July an Italian blogger put his finger on the essential similarity between Berlusconi and Renzi. I would add Blair to their number:

'Quando si dice che il sindaco di Firenze è un Berlusconi traslato al PD si dice una cosa vera perché, esattamente come accade per il Cavaliere, alla gente non piace Renzi per le sue proposte; alla gente piace Renzi perché è Renzi, non un politico ma un prodotto: guascone, affabile e dinamico, studiato fin nei minimi dettagli, dalla camicia senza cravatta con le maniche alzate all’attenzione opportunista al cosiddetto “popolo del web”, …'

[It's absolutely right to say that the Mayor of Florence is the Democratic Party's Berlusconi because, as was the case with the former prime minister, the general public don't like Renzi because of his policies; they like Renzi simply for being Renzi - he's not a politician but a product: an affable and dynamic braggart, whose appearance and every move is studied to the last detail, from his open necked shirt and rolled up sleeves to his opportunistic attention to the so-called 'people of the web' …]

In the meantime, as an article in yesterday's Corriere della Sera pointed out, one in four Italian families is economically deprived, and inequality is growing with the ten per cent of wealthiest families owning 46% of the country's net wealth, while globally 0.7% of the world's population own 41% of its riches. Shelley pointed out that 'we are many, they are few'. If Renzi (and Blair in his day) really wanted to change things for the better they would harness the power of the many to realise the vision of the mother of the founder of the religion they both claim to practise:

He hath put down the mighty from their seat :

 and hath exalted the humble and meek.

 He hath filled the hungry with good things :

 and the rich he hath sent empty away.

Now that really would be a rottamazione worth seeing!