Conspiracy of Sensibles

As has occasionally happened before, Italian politics appears to be suffering from a severe lack of Britishness. Cool-headed pragmatism has prevailed against the Ruritanian goose-stepping for which our mother of democracies has made itself renowned, with the migrant-baiting Matteo Salvini forced out of power by an unforeseen alliance of less patriotic spirits. Salvini's interior ministry has been given to a "migration specialist" who, in another break with British values, is expected to spend more time negotiating with the EU than making noise on social media. It remains as yet unclear whether any effort will be made to reduce the migrant hordes by refraining from making their homelands unlivable, or whether the EU will simply concern itself with drowning them more quietly.