There is an undersecretary to the Prime Minister’s Office who is working as a reporter in Ceuta

Alessandro Morelli, Under-Secretary to the Prime Minister, a member of the Lega and a close friend of Matteo Salvini, has been in Ceuta for the past two days with a microphone in his hand. What is he doing? Well, he’s playing the role of Sergio Zavoli with a bulldozer. He films, stops people in the street, stops them in the square, picks out those who are angry with Pedro Sánchez, gets them to speak, and then uploads it all to Instagram under the title ‘The invasion of foreigners in Spain’. With a certain degree of disbelief, and with the sort of alarm that, at Palazzo Chigi, is expressed by lowering one’s voice and closing the door, it was realised yesterday afternoon, in the offices neighbouring those of Giorgia Meloni and in those of the Farnesina, that Undersecretary Morelli is not exactly on a government mission but is embodying the spirit of the times. The Corriere had Barzini, La Repubblica had Bocca, and we—thanks to the League—are stuck with Morelli. Everyone exports what they produce. One of the videos that circulated yesterday in the right corridors features a relentless soundtrack—the sort that heralds the living dead in films—and shows scenes of rage, with residents tearing down migrants’ shacks. The caption above the images states that the citizens of Ceuta, abandoned by Sánchez, are demolishing the shanty towns of the illegal invaders, and asks the public whether this is what security means to the Left.

The target audience, clearly, is not the Spanish public, who are unaware of Morelli’s very existence and who, in any case, will not have to choose between Salvini and Vannacci in the forthcoming elections. The Foreign Minister was shown the video this afternoon. Antonio Tajani watched it in its entirety, and at the end, according to sources, he posed the only question a Foreign Minister could ask: what would happen if, tomorrow morning, one of Pedro Sánchez’s undersecretaries were to arrive at Malpensa and request to be taken to Rogoredo Park with a small camera in hand, as if he were Sigfrido Ranucci? Morelli is responsible for ‘economic policy planning’, a subject which, in this season of budgetary manoeuvring, would keep a man of lesser intellect occupied for weeks on end. But not him. After all, the reasons for the trip are the most respectable imaginable. The undersecretary emigrated for work. Just like the Moroccans.

Alessandro Morelli set off this weekend, travelled 1,800 kilometres, hired a car and began filming at night, driving slowly along the coast and commenting on the tents on the pavement in that low, slightly hoarse tone which, in reportage, stems from the tiredness and exertion of the job. The hard life of a correspondent. That’s how he set off on Saturday, just as our forebears used to, with a cardboard suitcase and a sense of hope. Because this must be said to the detractors: Under-Secretary Morelli is an emigrant, and those who attack him are attacking a century of Italian history. He went to Ceuta because his profession no longer paid the bills back home – now that Roberto Vannacci is polling at 8 per cent – and he went to practise it where there is demand.

Those who have been in power for four years find themselves in the, humanly speaking, cruel position of being unable to protest against anyone other than themselves. Because every form of decay to be found across the country is now, technically speaking, a family affair, and even the Home Secretary against whom they might protest is sitting at the next table. Indeed, he was chosen by Matteo Salvini himself. In Italy, therefore, for a League member like Morelli – who attended the same ‘university’ as Salvini, namely Radio Padania – there is not a single square metre of ground left on which to set up his tripod without the camera framing his own shoes. All that remains, therefore, is to head to Ceuta, in Spain, where the Socialists are in power. In choosing this destination, the Under-Secretary has demonstrated a professional acumen that few had attributed to him. Observers can only hope that Morelli does not stop there: Marseille, Saint-Denis, and the entirety of Burnham’s England remain as potential future destinations. Economic planning, it seems, will be someone else’s concern.