There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
‘The rise of Italy’s far-right is a grim indication of the future’
Speaking to the star’s Alexander Norton, DAVID BRODER introduces his new book that shows how the direct descendants of Mussolini’s fascist regime have come to power — and what it means for the rest of the world
Prime Minister since October 2022, Giorgia Meloni and her party Fratelli d’Italia are proud of their direct descendency from the postwar fascist party MSI and deeply committed to racially charged, far-right conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement.
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
WELL-EVIDENCED and convincing, David Broder’s book Mussolini’s Grandchildren tells the story of how veterans of the 1925-45 dictatorship were able to refound an unashamed “fascist party in a democracy” after their defeat in World War II, and how that party — renamed Fratelli d’Italia — is now in power following the 2022 elections, with Giorgia Meloni serving as Prime Minister.
For what is a fairly straightforward work of history, it is remarkably engaging, dryly humorous and prescient in its lessons for global politics. Testament to its impact, before the book’s release, Meloni was already denouncing its author; since its release, despite the fact it is written in English, the book is currently outselling Meloni’s autobiography on Italian Amazon. I ask David Broder about the nature of the modern Italian far right and why it is so important to understanding the direction of politics across the West.
Even the title mentions Mussolini, yet you insist Giorgia Meloni’s government isn’t a return to the past. What do you mean by that?
The title is Mussolini’s Grandchildren — the point being that her party is both rooted in regime-era fascism, but has also evolved over time, and this is in many ways a postmodern phenomenon. The ambiguity is well-rooted in the idea of “neither restoring nor reneging on the regime,” taken up by the postwar neofascist party called Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI).
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