Monday 26 November 2012

These are the Men, the Very Fat Men (and Women) Who Water the Workers' Beer

   Anna Finocchiaro, Enrico Letta, Pierluigi Bersani, Rosy Bindi

and this is the man who's scrapping them, Matteo Renzi, mayor of Florence.
Yesterday more than 4 million queued for hours to vote in the Partito Democratico primaries.  Today the PD official in charge of the vote has announced that continuing the count is of little importance as there is to be a vote-off next Sunday and the figures are not going to change much; and that Bersani is 9% ahead of Renzi.

Renzi's people say their returns are:over 4 million votes cast, with Renzi within 5% of Bersani, despite a gross under-provision of polling centres in likely Renzi areas (such as Florence citta', where we waited up to two and a half hours to register and vote).

Bersani supporters sneer that Renzi is the candidate of the centre right.   Renzi took Tuscany with over 55% of the vote - in the province of Arezzo he took over 60% - sweeping up Siena, Grosseto as well.  Umbria is one of the regions they're trying not to count.  And in Milan counting has slowed to a stop.

UPDATE
For a measure of the scale of Renzi's achievement here are the detailed results, comune by comune, for the province and city of Siena (chosen both because it is usually deepest red and because it is well-known to readers in England).

UPDATE 2

Renzi has won in red Umbria taking: Perugia, Foligno, Città di Castello, Assisi , Spoleto,  Spello, Sellano, Sigillo, Montefalco, Panicale, Castel Ritaldi.  

1 comment:

Caronte said...

"The water rates are shockingly high
and malt is shockingly dear
And there isn't the profit
there used to be
in wat'ring workers' beer".