WHEN the Northern League linked up with the Five Star Movement (M5S) to form Western Europe's first all-populist government of recent times, it was clear which was the junior partner. The League had won barely half as many votes at the general election in March. Yet in the absence of the new prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, it was the League's leader, Matteo Salvini, who chaired the new government's first cabinet. That was apparently because, at 45, he was older than his fellow-deputy premier, Luigi Di Maio of the M5S, then aged just 31.
But it was an augury: hyper-active and omnipresent, Mr Salvini has since set the agenda for the media and the government. Pointedly, he has continued to address rallies under his electoral slogan of "Salvini premier" ("Salvini prime minister"). It still adorns his and his party's websites, Facebook and Twitter pages. Only now, almost five months after the vote, is it starting to give way to a new refrain: Prima gli Italiani ("Italians...
The Economist: Europe
