The first to express outrage at Ranucci should be his bodyguards

Rome. Forget about ethics and ring Medicina 33. This phrase by Valter Lavitola, innkeeper and bomber, who confesses to the magistrates: “I carried out the attack on Ranucci for his own good”, has rightfully entered the lexicon of Italy’s long-standing misery – broken glass instead of diamonds, petrol served like Barolo at dinner. The scandal surrounding the security detail also makes it onto the news, finally revealing yet another Italian failure: the security detail treated like a handbag, the car stuffed with TNT, and all, as Ranucci explains, “just to get him a higher-level security detail”. The real aggrieved party is not (just) Rai, or its director-general Rossi – who no longer needs to wait for the ethics committee’s report to suspend Ranucci – but the police officers. Those who should be calling for Ranucci’s removal are the men who protected him, accompanied him to ANM rallies and his book launches, and waited for him backstage at his show – these officers who, in Lavitola’s scheme of things, were treated like dishwashers, like dim-witted Tavares, second-rate. Even the “no comment” in response to the question, “But did Ranucci know about the attack?”, is greasy and reeks of fried food – a response Ranucci brushes aside with a shrug. His “I can’t say any more” also smacks of a half-baked plot, again regarding the friend who dreamt of bringing scampi and the Secret Services to Palazzo Chigi alongside the octopuses. Even the alleged phone calls from Lavitola to Ranucci are now little more than half-truths: “If it was me, it was Ranucci too.” 

Those who are now up in arms about Ranucci using his social media accounts to compare himself to Aldo Moro, Piersanti Mattarella, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino are mistaken. Ranucci, who fancies himself a ‘voice that strikes fear’ – because, he goes on to say, ‘Italian history never kills its finest men out of weakness: it kills them for being too clear-sighted’ – deserves a snigger, not an ‘apology’. We’ve reached the point of Report’s Orphic laments, so much so that Ranucci’s own colleagues suggest: ‘We are faced with a case that requires medical treatment, not the criminal investigation department.’ When Rossi spoke of the risks of ‘theorem journalism’, there were those, such as Sandro Ruotolo of the PD, who called for Rossi’s resignation – a director-general who must clean up the RAI’s kitchen of this stench of scheming that also tarnishes the memory. To save Report, discussions are underway about whether to broadcast the reports with a summary – the old approach of a rigorous programme like TV7 – but it remains unclear whether this would improve Report or risk tarnishing its legacy as well. Only Ranucci’s viewers – ‘his bodyguards’, ‘the people’ – can still believe it is a conspiracy (they are writing this on his message board), and Ranucci’s lawyers’ response is bewildering: ‘Lavitola’s confession is shocking and confirms this delusional theatre of madness’. Ranucci has been under police protection since 2021 and the threats he has received are genuine, but thanks to Ranucci (did he do it for the good of the country?), we can finally talk about the police protection being used as a political tool, here where it was denied to Marco Biagi. Lavitola’s “love attack” on Ranucci was intended to raise the security detail’s profile, and even before that, on the right, the security detail caused a row involving the former editor of Libero, who was sacked by the publisher Angelucci (who was under police protection) during the days when, as Sechi recounted, “I ended up under police protection”. Renzi gave up his security detail when Mantovano decided to review the arrangements for former prime ministers, whilst Angelo Bonelli asked the Ministry of the Interior how many security details there are in Italy. How many? Undersecretary Molteni replied: magistrates have 416 officers at their disposal, a further 100 officers protect politicians, and the category of journalists has grown, with 59 officers and 27 cars. One hears stories of level-headed men who, after being assigned a security detail, lost their balance, began to see ghosts, and ordered even the emergency exits to be cordoned off. We could do with an episode of Report. Silvio Berlusconi used to call it ‘quid’. Lavitola has realised that the security detail is the ‘quid’ in the age of Report – just enough to create a leader. Cars screeching to a halt, bodyguards getting out of the car – four of them, rather than two. The security detail is our majority bonus.