Hammer and Tongues

Can you believe it? My vote actually helped this guy get into parliament. He is the perfect example of how the Italian electoral system (“reformed” by Berlusconi's right wing government) doesn't work. There is no direct represenation of constituents by “their MP”. You vote a list and get a job lot (with no “sell by” date). By voting the “di Pietro” list (Italia dei Valori”) I got also got landed with de Gregorio as a Senator. Now he has defected from di Pietro's list and will decide on issues “autonomously” as they come up and as the whim takes him. Instead of resigning, this pudgy little chap (he must have been a cutie when he was five) has found a way of making himself really important. His “autonomous” vote could  affect the government's already wobbly majority in the Senate. Critical commentators worry about a  senator who votes whichever way the wind happens to be blowing or, as journalist Marco Travaglio says, a “senatore a targhe alterne” (referring to the pratice in Italian cities of banning from the centre cars with odd and even number plates on alternate Thursdays. And much good that does as well.)