In recent months, when listening to Giuseppe Conte speak at one of his press conferences, which are usually soliloquies at night, the curiosity always arose: “But is Giuseppi doing us or not?” The first quarter of an hour of the end of the year press conference was enough, in which the premier magnified his exploits and those of the government with reflected light, congratulating himself, saying that the whole world does them, that the word “error” does not have his homeland in his offices, where everyone spends himself on the absolute good of Italians, to forcefully once again ask himself that question: “Are you doing or is there?” Because after a year like the one that has just passed, I would find very few people willing to recite a script like this, and in the face of a possible Rocco Casalino who wrote it, I would have felt such vaffa flying as to force him to start over presenting at least one “I apologize …”.

The answer to that question came to me from a video everyone can watch online by Professor Conte lecturing students on civil justice. It was 2014, and politics was still a long way off, Palazzo Chigi was a dream at best. A university lecture, where you usually hear a quoted text. Not from Professor Conte, who summoned only himself to poor students for endless 18 minutes. “I will make use of my scientific inclination”, he began in front of the poor people who must have said “but who cares”. However, he went ahead as if nothing had happened: “I quote my experience as a lawyer.” Should I give an example about the relationship between lawyers and clients? Here’s the inevitable self-quote: “I call it the mayeutical contact between attorney and client.” And far with a series of “I have experience”, “I always say”, “once I had defined it …”, “at that moment in my mind all the laws began to flow …”. What these poor kids could have ever learned other than having him in front of “Mr. I” who was drenched in jujube in front of a mirror.

Here’s the answer: there it is, it isn’t. Our prime minister is like that, he doesn’t act. He lives alone, magnifies himself before their eyes, magnifies his ego inordinately, captures in the hiss of the wind the exalted praises of his work. There is no use whistling at him, because he would not understand. He would take them as a discreet and resounding sign of the confidence that everyone has in him: “they let air out of their mouths because they are crazy about me and want to warm me up on such cold days.” Or the other way around in summer. I don’t envy Matteo Renzi, because Conte will never understand. On the other hand, how can you talk to a slime who, instead of filling himself with rum, is drenched in himself?

I don’t know if any reader wasted time yesterday morning, the last day of the Orange Zone, to prepare what little he could for New Year’s Eve, to listen to the Prime Minister’s end-of-year speech. To those who have clicked on the event, I can say that they have not lost much, if not the opportunity once again to understand how unfortunately the man who must lead the country in this difficult moment finds himself isolated in his self-referential bubble on the moon, Since he can’t see anything, he never wanted to lower his eyes. They would have heard Conte say and say to himself “I work with discipline and honor.” Or play the favorite tune he hummed the first day: “Do you advocate for the people? It will be like this until the last day, always of Italian interest ”. And when faced with some slightly less adoring questions, answer, “What if I made mistakes? I leave the evaluation to history ”. Because the little man is certain that he will soon be seen in the history books.

In fact, he seems a bit irritated by the fact that it has not been discussed yet and it has not been studied in school. But it is because there is no one on the benches with or without wheels, and the school is one of the most sensational failures of this government: contagion in bursts until the massacre of grandparents. And now the difficulty of reopening the institutions since the government has done nothing to make the operation possible and safe and to remedy the defeat of this fall. The floor is slippery, and when you already know that there is a risk of not being able to magnify yourself,

Conte always has a solution: blame others. Before Christmas, he passed the responsibility for running the school to the poor prefects. And yesterday he put his hands on it: “Yes, as they tell me, the prefectural tables have worked well, we can start again with at least 50%”, which translates as follows: “yes, on the contrary It doesn’t go well, it’s the sole fault of the prefects. ” “.

But if the school were to reopen happily, you can be sure that the credit will go to the little man alone. Who yesterday had the face to say that the management of the pandemic emergency of his government is taken as a model throughout Europe and throughout the world. Italy is at the top of the universe for the number of deaths from coronavirus and it also has the most disastrous economic consequences of all the others. How the feathers did not rise one after another from the press conference room is truly a mystery. Less listening to dozens of colleagues, they begin their intervention with a thank you to the prime minister for his availability at the press conference that all the presidents of the Council have always held at the end of the year because it is their duty. The only thing missing was that they would thank him because once again Conte managed to get it to arrive on December 31, giving it to the Italians. But it arrived, in impossible conditions. So my best wishes to the readers of Il Tempo. Still, it’s worth raising the glass for having a horrible year behind him. As for the new, who knows: it will hardly be worse. And maybe we can also leave the little man behind. Wishes!