Elly Schlein, amidst the ‘salamelle’ of L’Unità, surveys Creation whilst Conte adopts a Putin-like stance

On Sunday evening, at the Festa dell’Unità in Villalunga, in the province of Reggio Emilia, Elly Schlein took stock of creation. From global warming to the bed we sleep in. She spanned the infinitely large and the infinitely small. The only thing she overlooked was the infinitely close – which that evening took the form of Giuseppe Conte, who just a few hours earlier had challenged her for the leadership of the centre-left, explaining that even on Ukraine, with him as leader, things would be different because ‘people are fed up with Zelensky and we need to negotiate with Putin’. But for the rest, one must acknowledge that she – Elly, that is – has covered everything: the planet, of which there is only one, and therefore Bologna...

And of course she covered Gaza, Iran, the Constitution – which is the most beautiful in the world – and, naturally, anti-fascism with Tina Anselmi, followed by the deadly heatwave and the equally deadly artificial intelligence, not forgetting – last but not least – a student’s rented room away from home. Standing beneath the stage at the Festa dell’Unità, microphone in hand and facing four hundred white chairs occupied by a deeply entrenched faith, Schlein took forty-three minutes and eighteen seconds. But in all that, one plateau was missing: that of Asiago, where, just a few hours earlier, Conte had, in fact, said a couple of trivial little things. And he had hinted that, in the face of widespread warmongering – even on the left – the coalition he leads would fare better, much better. Forget Schlein as Prime Minister. The only leader is Giuseppe.

At that point, in Rome, the PD MPs had spent the afternoon assuring everyone that now ‘Elly’s going to give them a piece of her mind’. You’ll see. ‘She’s speaking in Emilia tonight.’ ‘Now she’ll respond.’ ‘She’ll show them.’ ‘You don’t mess about with Ukraine; it’s a deal-breaker.’ And so here she is, at last – Elly, that is, Schlein, the PD secretary – amidst the salamelle, the mosquitoes and the muggy heat of the Po Valley. “I know this is what you’ve been waiting for,” she begins defiantly before this left-wing crowd that has been taking the trouble to fry gnocchi for the cause for seventy years. “We’re here at a very important moment,” she adds. “I’d like to talk to you about a highly topical issue… the 1980 Bologna massacre.” There you go. Absolutely right. “You see, this is a story that speaks to the present,” she explains. And here, suddenly, the audience leans in, because the present has a surname tonight, and it’s in Veneto. Still on that Asiago Plateau. “The present is… (suspense) … the referendum on justice. That’s where we must start again.” All right, we’ll start again from there, but does that lead us to a Putin-style Conte? There’s no doubt about it. “That’s why there’s something even more topical than the referendum,” Elly continues. At this, the audience of pensioners gasps. “Enough with unpaid work placements.” Applause. “But artificial intelligence must also be disarmed, as the Pope says.” “That is the role of the left: to disarm artificial intelligence.” Not Russia, mind you.

The grey-haired gentlemen, former branch executives – the generation that still calls a laptop a ‘little computer’ and the Russian Federation ‘CCCP’ – nod with the air of people waiting – amidst the steaming pots – for the bingo draw. But Schlein doesn’t let them off the hook for a second. She keeps them on tenterhooks. Current political affairs come first. “We’re here at a very important moment. A turning point in history.” There you go, a turning point. Here we are. Conte! Conte! Someone, instinctively, clings to the armrest of their plastic chair. “The turning point in history is… the climate emergency. The heat.” Even Benigni, in fact, used to say that Palermo’s problem is the traffic. The Left’s problem is the heat. “But there’s another battle that’s a real priority,” she continues. Even more so than the heat. Even more so than the turning point in history. “And that’s Article 32 of the Constitution,” which is under threat from the right-wing government and which, amongst other things, also allows for “cascading subcontracting”. And here one begins to get a sense of the structure of Schlein’s speech.

There is the turning point in history, there is the waterfall, there are the climbs and the fresh starts. Nothing is missing from the national landscape except one thing: that flat plateau at an altitude of a thousand metres in the province of Vicenza where Conte was staying – the only place in Italy where, just a few hours earlier, something had happened concerning the ‘stubbornly united’ centre-left. In short, the plateau is missing. All that remains is Elly’s plan. Take them, take them, stubbornly take them.