6: Rome and away: Italy’s ex-PM MATTEO RENZI on power, populism… and football

Anger Management with Nick Clegg

Britain and the United States are not the only political systems to be rocked by the forces of populism. The convulsions of the past few years have left Italian politics unrecognisable. So where do we go from here?

On the latest edition of ANGER MANAGEMENT, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi – Italy’s youngest-ever PM and head of the fourth longest-lasting government in Italian history – talks to Nick Clegg about his country’s present and future. Showing a rare sense of humour in a senior politician, he recounts the experiences that shaped him, explains where anger is leading Italian politics, and tells us how populism’s strengths are also its weaknesses.

• “When I was a boy, if you were a good footballer you became a player. If you weren’t a good player you became a referee. So I became a referee. But if you weren’t a good referee, you became a politician. So I became Prime Minister…”

• “Italy is a chaotic country. But from the chaos we get our creativity.”

• “I’m in the same club as David Cameron — the club that’s against referendums. He lost his job after a Referendum in Britain, and I lost mine after one in Italy.”

• “In politics, you decide something today — and you don’t discover the consequences for many years. It’s hard to see what will happen to the UK. And when it does, people might not remember the real reasons why.”

• “The best way to defeat populism is time. Time is the thing that shows false promises to be wrong.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black. Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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