Calenda copies Renzi and looks to the PD, but also negotiates with Tajani. And it’s freezing –

Look Brunello

August 29, 2024

Which is understandable. He had something completely different in mind, certainly another path. Starting from the summer of five years ago, when Carlo Calenda left the Nazareno and tore up his membership card for the PD, the party in which he had been elected MEP a few months earlier. “The agreement with the M5S means giving up on politics,” he wrote in one breath to the secretary at the time Nicola Zingaretti. He had big plans then, to build the Action Party, and find a group of initiates who were finally up to his level. In reality, for months, Mr. Carlo remained in the company of only Matteo Richetti, the Emilian, at odds with his old buddy from Leopolda, who stubbornly continued to dream of being President of something. It was a peaceful period all in all, a few talk shows to show off his self-assurance and long historical discussions with his party comrade, who mostly listened to his lectures. The Action party eventually lost its prefix, perhaps even to him it seemed a bit too much to compare itself to Ferruccio Parri, so Azione took shape in a smarter way. And since then it has been a continuous up and down.

Sor Carlo did not become mayor of Rome, he did not become Enrico Letta’s sparring partner, he took refuge in the arms of Matteo Renzi (who for the record ate him up), with all that ensued to the delight of the newspapers that have filled the pages for years with the disputes between the Florentine and the ‘honorary’ Parioli man. Finally, the latest misadventure: he did not become a member of the European Parliament (he had already been in the past but in the meantime he argued with everyone in Brussels and never went), the same fate befell his hated former prime minister. Remaining in Rome to lick their wounds, for once they had the same idea. Why not listen to Aunt Elly? The bad luck is that once again, the Florentine wasted his time: he served a good offside ball to the secretary of the Democratic Party, and the game was over. The other one who had already agreed to reach, if necessary even on foot, the Nazareno, stopped in time to smoke a cigarette, “I can’t finish behind that guy”. A choice only postponed, just to calm down a little the impatient people at home: Maria Stella Gelmini, Enrico Costa, Mara Carfagna, Giusi Versace and Giulia Pastorella, who don’t want to hear about the Democratic Party.

Just do things calmly and coolly, implores Mr. Carlo, who is also known as a good “fumino”. However, in Reggio Emilia, on the stage of the national celebration of Unita, last Tuesday, together with the 5 Star Stefano Patuanelli and the dem Antonio Misiani, the leader of Azione, took a great satisfaction. If you knew the applause in the audience, “Carlo, Carlo come back, how nice you are”. He, who in the meantime in Montecitorio is about to cash in the presidency of a new Commission of Inquiry (demography) for the trusted Elena Bonetti, is being clever about the ius scholae, inventing himself as an interpreter of Forza Italia. The method used by Calenda is “ridiculous”, says the group leader of Forza Italia Maurizio Gasparri, and it remains to be seen whether it is an observation or a disagreement.