Italian fascism is once again on the rise

Yet Mr Veltroni has much to answer for. It was his centre-left regime in Rome which ran the capital for the past 15 years and whose skewed priorities made the right's triumph possible. Mr Veltroni and his predecessor Francesco Rutelli - the centre-left's mayoral candidate beaten last week by Mr Alemanno - ran the city for the benefit of the post-communist intelligentsia, who lapped up the endless film and art and music events and believed it when Mr Veltroni told them that "Rome is the locomotive of Italy", and that culture and tourism were the locomotive's fuel.

But meanwhile the majority of the city's population were shut out of the loop. They lived outside the city's exquisite centre, in benighted and desperately ugly dormitory suburbs with pathetic transport links, scarce policing, negligent local authorities and every indication of official contempt. And those nightmare suburbs continue to multiply. So now the Romans have risen up and thrown the champagne communists out. And the cry is out with the gypsies, in with the police; out with the 20,000 foreigners who have committed crimes; restore the city to those who rightly possess it. The crude and simple appeal of fascism has always been to blood and soil, and so it remains today.

If Italy today has the worst-performing economy in western Europe, it is thanks to the criminal failure of its politicians to tackle the special interest groups which hold the state hostage in every sphere of life, from trade unions to universities, from property development to the justice system. Italy feels itself in decline and reacts electorally with a lurch to the far right, but as so often, everything must change in order that everything stays the same. Those responsible for Italy's problems will continue to make hay just as before. Those who suffer will be those who are least to blame for the country's woes.

p.popham@independent.co.uk

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