Income tax, wealth tax and gun control will feature in the centre-left’s manifesto (under a different name)

According to Corriere della Sera, the PD has decided to include in its manifesto the “citizenship income” called for by Giuseppe Conte, in addition to other measures. However, the party has chosen to refer to it as “a form of income support for those who are not in work, but also for pensioners and young people in precarious employment, with particular attention paid to ensuring there is no fraud”. That is the exact wording. The Nazareno, in its immense political wisdom, has evidently decided to remind us that we all live in a world of euphemisms these days. For example, the man who buries you is now called a ‘necrophore’. Everyone, except perhaps the deceased, knows he is an undertaker, but that fanciful name helps convince the bereaved that their loved one isn’t actually dead – they’ve merely been away for a few million years. So the ‘wealth tax’ – speaking of undertakers – the one that Nicola Fratoianni is calling for, which Conte claims won’t work, and which the PD will find a way to accept, will probably become ‘a form of support for the public finances from those who possess a great deal, but also from those who possess a lot, without entirely excluding those who possess enough, provided it is not framed as a wealth tax and is not called a tax’.

On the other hand, as they are well aware at the Nazareno, anyone who earns a decent living by sweeping the streets is no longer a street sweeper, but an ‘environmental worker’. And a chiropodist is now a ‘podiatrist’. As for a proctologist? Let us not even go there. In the same vein—and here lies the modern genius of the PD—it is not difficult to imagine that, dictionary in hand, even the weapons supplied to Ukraine will soon find a more contemporary, more fitting, more precise definition, better suited to the context of the alliance. What are missiles, after all, if not ‘devices of persuasion with variable range aimed at resuming dialogue’? And isn’t anti-aircraft fire simply a ‘high-altitude civil defence measure’? There’s no doubt about it. All of this, it can be assumed, will be consolidated into a single chapter of the programme endorsed by the M5S, AVS, IV, PD and +Europa, entitled ‘a form of material support for the legitimate defence of a people under attack, for those who fight but also for those who negotiate, in the shared hope that nothing will explode’. The same ‘broad coalition’, after all, has already renamed itself the ‘progressive alliance’, and it is only a matter of time before the name evolves into its final form: namely, ‘a progressive yet moderate coalition, broad yet narrow, open to Matteo Renzi but also not’. The initiative is expected to succeed. Igor Taruffi, the PD’s head of organisation, explained that the aim is to have the coalition’s manifesto ready six months before the election. It is unclear why, but observers fear that six months will barely be enough time to read the document.