During a rally in 2019, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy party, quoted G K Chesterton.
The English writer, theologian and heavily-mustachioed sage seemed an unlikely choice for the climax of an impassioned oration by a tiny, fiery Italian blonde.
But maybe not.
Chesterton was known as the “Apostle of common sense”.
“Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. That time has arrived. We are ready,” she shouted in her thick, working-class Roman accent.
The audience whooped.
Part of Meloni’s speech went viral.
“They want to call us parent 1, parent 2, gender LGBT, citizen X, with code numbers.
“But we are not code numbers … and we’ll defend our identity.
“I am Giorgia. I am a woman. I am a mother. I am Italian. I am Christian!”
Some DJs, who were unhappy with Meloni’s views on gay marriage, sampled her words and put a disco beat behind them to demonise her.
It backfired big time.
The song became a hit in Italian clubs and shot up the charts; far from discrediting Meloni, it only boosted her popularity.
Last week, that fiery, 45-year-old blonde became the first female prime minister of Italy, a major personal triumph in a still notably macho culture.
But the headlines all focused on Giorgia Meloni being “far-Right”.
“The most dangerous woman in Europe,” warned Germany’s Stern magazine.
Meloni had even upset Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission.
Responding to a question on whether there were any concerns about the forthcoming elections in Italy, a sanctimoniously smirking von der Leyen replied, “If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools.”
They call Giorgia Meloni a fascist, but it’s the impeccably liberal von der Leyen who behaves like one.
“We have tools,” spoken like a true totalitarian.
Who would you trust when it comes to respecting a democratic decision?
The first elected leader of Italy for 14 years, a single mother from a poor home, or a failed German defence minister, the product of a wealthy elite who was shoehorned into the EU’s top job without a single vote cast?
While there are valid concerns about the fascist origins of Meloni’s party, what I hear when I listen to her are mainstream Conservative values.
Here is a politician who speaks up for the family and the nation.
She opposes globalisation which turns men and women into faceless units of consumption.
She says yes to secure borders and no to mass migration, yes to sexual identity and no to the alphabetti spaghetti of gender politics.
Why are these views of millions of middle-of-the road people now called “far-Right”? Continue reading
- Allison Pearson is a columnist and the chief interviewer of the Daily Telegraph.