“Should I cut it off or break up?”. The discussion about reducing the Rai license fee is a lot like a negotiation between a delicatessen and its customers. Whatever the merits of the provision, it is clear that the fight over the 20 euros or so in the bill is nothing more than an excuse used by the League and Forza Italia to re-establish or confirm the current balance of power.

Who is second best? Who is Giorgia Meloni’s favorite? If one of the two contestants is fundamentally wrong, the other is methodologically wrong. Italian politics has its own rituals, strict rules and dangerous examples. Before his departure, Knight Silvio Berlusconi had predicted that the opposition would reunite after the European elections and that difficult times would come for the Meloni government. And in fact the centre-left won in Emilia Romagna and Umbria after failing by a few points in Liguria.

Historical facts and events show that governments in Italy last, on average, about two years, followed by a slow attrition of the ruling majority and the onset of a long series of internal problems. In the First and Second Republics, governments fell at the behest of minor parties, but in the Third Republic this trend was reversed. Until the early 90s, coastal governments were born or destroyed by the will of so-called secular parties such as PRI, PLI, PSDI… In 2019 alone, Matteo Salvini received 34 percent of the votes. European elections brought down the yellow-green government, convincing him to return to early elections and become prime minister in a few months. But the second Conte government perished at the hands of another Matteo, Renzi of Tuscany, who managed to bring Mario Draghi to Palazzo Chigi.

But the former ECB president fell out because Conte caused a crisis to prevent M5S from disappearing, seizing the opportunity to exploit his advantage over the centre-right’s rivals. Assuming that one of Meloni’s two allies, Tajani or Salvini, really wants to bring the government to its knees, and if we do not accept this, they will have to deal with the same fate as those who caused government crises in the past. Various Fausto Bertinotti, Gianfranco Fini and Clemente Mastella literally disappeared from the Palace. One of the golden rules of recent politics is to foresee the downsizing, disappearance or political end of anyone who causes a party split or government crisis.

It is true that we are no longer under a pandemic, but the international context, with the outbreak of a Third World War increasingly imminent from time to time, should advise rivals to be more careful because, at least in the short term, such moves can only strengthen Meloni. However, in the long run, the weakness of the allies may lead the centre-right to suffer new electoral defeats, perhaps in next year’s regional elections.