Better the devil you don’t know - Italy endorses maverick populists

Even though Italians are no strangers to political instability the weekend endorsement of the maverick populist Five Star Movement, led by 31-year-old Luigi De Maio, seems a desperate step into the unknown.

The party has no experience of government and has insisted that it will not support establishment parties. The result may turn the adage — “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” — on its head as a strongly-tipped alternative was a coalition of the right and the far right with the discredited Silvio Berlusconi, debarred from office over tax fraud, as the chief puppet master. Back to the future in a most unattractive way as it were.