Ghost of a flea: Good-hearted lads

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May 27, 2010

Good-hearted lads

Philippe Ridet profiles Italy's right of centre Northern League, many of whose concerns will look familiar to Canadian conservatives (via Gates of Vienna).

It is a platform that has proved remarkably successful with small business owners weary of seeing their taxes "squandered" to help the terroni ("bumpkins from the South"), their employees who fear that immigrants will take their jobs, farmers and wine growers outraged by the nit-picking rule-makers in Brussels, and craftsmen worried by the competition from China and emerging countries. In election after election, the League has gone from strength to strength, sidelining the Left and eventually rivalling — and even overtaking — its ally, the right-wing People of Freedom party.

Time and again Western electorates have demonstrated they will support a genuine conservative platform whenever our Establishment betters have the nerve to offer us one. But unless things change dramatically and soon we are living in the last generation where the numbers could support a conservative platform. After that we will have to cross our fingers enough Chinese and Indians have arrived to present a workable coalition against the local arm of the caliphate.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 27, 2010 08:43 AM