The Minister of Defence travels in style

Just a few days ago I wrote an entry on how the Italian police is fundraising in order to buy petrol for their cars, following the Government spending cuts. Well, the cuts have obviously not affected the ministry of defence, which has recently acquired not one, but 19 new Maseratis.

The evil-looking Minister of Defence Ignazio La Russa, claimed that the cars were ordered a few years ago - silly excuse as Italy wasn't in a much better economic climate anyway.

Maurizio Caprino authored a very unbiased blog post for il Sole 24 Ore website, explaining that the cars might actually have been a good choice in terms of value for money, but still it seems that there was no good reason to justify such purchase.

Now, I know that this type of news can be easily blown out of proportion just to create scandal and that there might be a necessity for the ministry to owe such cars, but the point is that in Italy there is always a lack of transparency and politicians are allowed to do pretty much whatever they want with the tax-payers money. It is significant to point out that while the budget for the police was heavily reduced, the budget for the auto blu (cars used by politicians) has not been touched. These cars should only been used for work and official purposes, but they are notoriously used from pretty much everything, including going to football matches.

Beelzebub Ignazio La Russa

The Police is running out of petrol

There's a lot of talk and criticism in the UK regarding the Government's spending cuts, but in Italy, as usual, we take things to another level.

The police has been deeply affected by the cuts and police unions have organised protests in many Italian cities today. But what is peculiar about these protests? The unions are also doing a fundraising, asking citizens to donate money to a fund for the purchase of petrol. The cuts are so bad that the police soon won't be able to afford petrol for their cars.

When I read this shocking news, a comment piece written by Naomi Klein following the London riots, came to mind:

"You can't cut police budgets at the same time as you cut everything else. Because when you rob people of what little they have, in order to protect the interests of those who have more than anyone deserves, you should expect resistance – whether organised protests or spontaneous looting. And that's not politics. It's physics."


Well, I think that what Naomi Klein said for London, applies perfectly to the riots in Rome that we witnessed only a few days ago.

Riots in Rome