Birds of a feather and so on

A couple of months ago now, but you might have missed it like I did: Matteo Renzi has leased a large jet for his own use, at great expense to the beleaguered Italian public. The Airbus 340-500 has been leased at €1 million a month from Etihad, which has bought a 49% stake in Alitalia.

If you read Italian, there’s more about this here and here and also here and here.

This can happen only because Italy is one of the least democratic countries in Europe. Democracy is so weak there that even in a wrecked economy, the prime minister can lease an enormous jet like that at huge expense and people will just lie back and take it.

And this is our model – though I’d like to think that if our prime minister took out a long lease on even a small private plane for himself, he’d be shredded by the electorate. And that, I’ll bet, is the only thing which stops him doing it, because that wife of his almost certainly has longing daydreams of descending from an Airbus 340-500 emblazoned with the legend REPUBBLIKA TA’ MALTA decked out in a white fur cape (Eva Peron), tiny veiled hat (Audrey Hepburn), big round sunglasses (Jackie Kennedy) and Swarovski-crystal-encrusted clutch-bag (ex Soviet territory disco tramp).