Ruffini and Gabrielli present the programme. The centre comes first; the rest is just a bore

“Hai voglia di far centro quella sera / Sì, d'accordo, ma poi / Tutto il resto è noia,” sang Franco Califano. Bringing these lines to life this afternoon were another Franco – Gabrielli – and Ernesto Maria Ruffini. The “cop” and the “tax collector” – as they call themselves – presented their political programme for the upcoming elections: six paths and forty-three proposals (plus one) for “a more equal country”. All of this is set out in a little orange booklet, which serves as the manifesto for their newly formed party, Più Uno: another initiative that aims to bring together expertise and return it to the centre of the political arena, with an eye to the broader political spectrum. It is this very centre to which the former director of the Revenue Agency has renewed his call for unity, requesting a meeting to agree on a single centrist list for the forthcoming elections within the centre-left coalition.

It’s a crowded field: Onorato, Renzi, Spadafora, Mastella. There was no shortage of questions about political alignments, factional divisions and the electoral law. All the more so because Riccardo Magi, together with Bruno Tabacci, had formally requested the creation of an independent group in the Chamber of Deputies just a few hours earlier, in order to circumvent the hurdle of collecting signatures ahead of the forthcoming elections. The rest is ‘boring’, as we were saying. But only on the surface, because behind the 88 pages of proposals and ideas ‘at the disposal of the centre-left’ lies a programme with a defined cost of 11.4 billion, plus a further four billion in initial expenditure, already ready to ‘be put to use’.

Among the proposals, a substantial section on taxation was inevitable. There is the "pre-filled benefits form": the state should inform citizens of the benefits to which they are entitled and pay them out without the need for an application. There is also the ISEE, calculated automatically each year, and a proposal for INPS to advance child maintenance payments that have not been paid due to financial difficulties. To promote generational renewal, the plan proposes that at least 10 per cent of the boards of directors of listed and public companies should be composed of individuals under 40. There are also proposals for symbolic, zero-balance invoices issued to students and patients, stating the cost of education and medical care. On security (Gabrielli comments on the new decree as follows: “What number are we on now? It’s the seventh. This frenzy proves there is no strategy”), the programme provides for identification codes for officers involved in maintaining public order. And new taxes are ruled out: “The resources are there; it’s enough to say the opposite because the tax burden is at an all-time high.”

In short, a comprehensive and practical package available to the broad coalition, a basis for a common programme. Then come the primaries – it always comes back to that, to the centre. They must be ‘open, regulated and held in two rounds’, says Ruffini: ‘It would be surreal to hold them any other way. When? The issue isn’t when, but doing them properly’.