'1983 is the most important election since the war,' said my Italian friend, a sociologist, exultantly. 'After nearly forty years everything is in flux.' I had rung him the day after the election. He could hardly speak for excitement. The country was stunned. The results had completely flattened the opinion polls, which has been caught with their predictions down. They had not foreseen the landslide of voters leaving the 'party of relative majority', as the Christian Democrats tend to be called.

LRB 21 July 1983 | PDF Download