Gesture Politics

Italy's highest court has ruled that the Fascist salute may legally be performed in public, provided that it does not cause disorder or entail a resurrection of Mussolini's party. Italian law already bans apology for Fascism and re-organising the party, and apparently the Roman salute constitutes neither; presumably in much the same sense as genuflections by Mussolini's heirs in the Vatican still symbolise no very close acquaintance with poverty or celibacy. The intervention by the court of cassation makes for a telling contrast with the will of the people on the mainland, where the attitudes and policies of the Farage Falange have thoroughly coloured the mainstream without anyone feeling the need to pronounce on the legality of its imperial purple, whether in the corporate logo or in the complexion of its cadres.