Melons and dissociated. The League dissociates itself and in the territories they run already separate

It can be called in two ways: “Competition” or “ethnic replacement”. The League is carrying out trials of “ethnic replacement” for the government. Andrea Orlando, a prince of the Democratic Party, says it in the Chamber: “The only replacement I see is that of the League with FdI. Today Salvini’s party sets the agenda”. While Meloni is forced to deal with Nordio, svalvolati and cartoons, her other minister, Giorgetti, takes the stage. Salvini is a perfect speaker of the Cciss “Travel informed”. Lorenzo Fontana, pronunciation aside, is an impeccable president of the Chamber. A separation is already taking place in the territories. In Trentino, in the elections, the League will not run with FdI. From Rome, the substitution is not seen, but it is known in the provinces.

Matteo Salvini’s party, after the Lombardy regional elections, has started running again. He’s in a good mood, and it’s good to have him. The annoyances remained with Giorgia Meloni. Yesterday, and it was a day called ordinary, within a few hours, the prime minister received, first, the unfavorable sentence of the European Court of Justice (bathing concessions must be put out to tender and immediately), afterwards, she collected a sentence by the European Parliament for rhetoric used against LGBTQ communities. The day continued with Nordio’s briefing on the Uss case (the mysterious escape from Italy) and with a CDM. On the agenda was the Competition Law without, however, a regulation on Competition (of the beaches). Mock of mockery, Meloni must bear the sentence, while Lega and FI can boast, in complete tranquility, that the battle against the European Union continues and that the sentence is worth nothing. Come on, lifeguard! Stefano Candiani, Northern League deputy, can declare: “Now someone understands how tiring it is to govern”. What should Meloni say instead? His minister Lollobrigida must defend himself in Corriere della Sera while Giorgetti passes for the new Abraham: have children, turn off Netflix. On the Foglio he launched “the no tax bed”. Two babies and no taxes. When the Deputy Minister of Economy, Maurizio Leo, of FdI, read it he leapt from his chair: “And where does this come from?”. Meloni, who had included this project in her program at the first point, thus saw her first good idea stolen after weeks to forget. What a relief that would be. Giovanni Donzelli, group leader of FdI – who must be acknowledged for his courtesy in responding, despite the very harsh articles he has received – smiles and explains that “Giorgetti’s proposal is good news” and then adds: “If he finds the money… ”. A Northern League member who hears him: “He finds them, he finds them”. It means that FdI has seriously resented himself. And here Candiani speaks again: “It’s like in football. There is a moment when the spotlights move to the goalkeeper, then to the defender, then to the winger. The game must be built. They are all needed”. Better than Zeman.

And he’s right. But right now Meloni is in goal while Giorgetti, Salvini are running free on the field. The roles have reversed. Suffice it to say that the Northern League distances itself from Lollobrigida: “Who made a sensational mistake. Making a statement, on the day Mattarella visits the extermination camps, attracts controversy. It’s self-evident.” Until six months ago, Simone Pillon, the pro life with the bow tie, was a senator of the League. FdI, going to government, has undergone a genetic mutation, but there will also be a vaccine to overcome the Calimero phase. By now the controversies on April 25 unleashed by La Russa or the difficulties of minister Piantedosi (he had entered as minister of the League but today he is to all intents and purposes a minister of Meloni) are countless. There must be an extraordinary attraction of FdI towards all that is extravagant. It’s the Bagaglino party, masks, wigs, or anonymity. Claudio Durigon, Undersecretary of Labour, Northern League supporter (and the newspapers spare him nothing) seems to be the real Minister of Labour. The other day, on the Transatlantic, he was surrounded and answered as the owner of Welfare. This is also a “substitution”. If you were to ask on the street who the Minister of Labor (Calderone) is, no one would be able to answer. The Competition Law, for example, is a matter for Minister Urso. The law decree, approved, allows street vendors to renew concessions for the next twelve years. In Italy, competing is blasphemy. But it is FdI (and Urso) who has to do penance. The FdI deputies are starting to think so: “We have the wrong ministries”. Allies, of course, but as anticipated at the beginning, in Trentino, the Northern League’s Fugatti, FdI and Lega will not run together. In Veneto, in Treviso, where votes are taken for the municipal elections (the favorite is the Northern League mayor Mario Conte) a patriot of FdI, had mistaken Conte Mario for Giuseppe of the M5s. He had started attacking him in the papers, basically attacking his candidate for mayor. Apart from the usual Alberto Bagnai, one who doesn’t even smile when he sees Zalone’s films, all the other Northern League supporters seem to have come out of Matteo Salvini’s birthday party (they say he celebrates it every week, and it’s always karaoke and piano bar). All of them have entered the field, in government, only six months ago. If it were a football match we wouldn’t even be fifteen minutes away. FdI is already out of breath, Salvini runs on the treadmill and shouts: “8 km, for someone who does nothing like me”. We swear it to you, Salvini said so. And he said it beautifully. When he started doing nothing, everything started going very well for the League. Poor fools. We were looking for the anti Salvini and the solution was instead in the gym.

• 
  

• Carmelo Caruso

• Carmelo Caruso, journalist in Palermo, Milan, Rome. He started at La Repubblica. Today he works at the Foglio