As I watched the final stages of the re-election of Giorgio Napolitano as Italy’s President yesterday afternoon, I was struck by the multiple ironies of the case.

Outside Parliament in Rome, crowds of extremist parties and also Beppe Grillo supporters milled about, clamouring and condemning what they called a ‘coup’ that had just taken place and threatening yet another march on Rome.

Inside, Silvio Berlusconi, with a smile on his face bigger than the Cheshire Cat’s, accepted congratulations from everyone.

He had just seen off his great antagonist, Luigi Bersani, the real loser of this election, who earlier yesterday was forced to resign after it was clear he could not command his own party, which has just won the Italian general election.

Bersani and Berlusconi had come to a sort of agreement earlier to support Marini, the former trade unionist, but Marini could not garner enough support.

Then Bersani came up with Plan B – supporting Romano Prodi whose name was unanimously supported by the Bersani MPs at a special meeting. Bersani’s party, the Partito Democratico has 496 voters and Prodi needed just eight more to get the 504 absolute majority. Instead, Prodi got around 100 less than that and Bersani was finished and resigned.

Now Napolitano was the President who had engineered the downfall of Berlusconi as prime minister and his succession by Mario Monti. Nevertheless, here was Napolitano being re-elected and Berlusconi all smiles.

Will yesterday’s election bring a solution to Italy’s woes? Will it at least bring with it a new government (reports said yesterday the agreement is for Giuliano Amato to be the new prime minister)?

All this remains to be seen. Meanwhile, enjoy the typical Italian knack of stabbing people in the back and, for people like Berlusconi who a few weeks ago seemed down and out, now re-emerging as the winners.

Berlusconi has shrugged off the multiple legal cases he has against him, made a strategic U-turn, became anti-German and anti-euro and anti-EU and the latest polls say that if an election were to be held now, he could be the winner.

He has seen off Mario Monti who was pushed by the EU to impose a strict austerity programme, which has crippled the country further. Berlusconi was the one who in 2005 promised to overhaul the economy then did nothing about it. Monti and the EU argued that Italy needs to liberalise its employment laws, which was instantly opposed by the interest groups, and Berlusconi built his recent election campaign on a promise to withdraw the tax on first houses imposed by Monti, which admittedly has crippled many people.

With Italy, even more than with France, the crisis reaches its crucial node. Greece and Cyprus were just tasters of what’s to come. Spain and Portugal are crippled with no light visible at the end of the tunnel. Germany is unwilling to do more to rescue the European economy and the Monti medicine, like the Hollande medicine, has not worked. Unemployment is high and edging upwards, jobs are being lost, people want change but then are unwilling to face up to a real change and the pain it brings with it.

Choosing an 80-something President, who thought he had earned his retirement, just because the parties could not agree on someone else, and getting parties who are unable to come up with an effective platform except trip each other up in this ghastly game of beggar thy neighbour, does not promise anything good.

Apart from the followers of Beppe Grillo, who were incensed at what happened in Parliament yesterday, it’s the economy and the markets that will tell us, starting from tomorrow, what they really think about the Italian situation.

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Some weeks ago, a welfare scrounger, Mick Philpott, burned down his home, a council house, in Derby, UK. His five children were in the house and they all died as a result.

Britain was immediately submerged in media comment, led by the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, and the details of his life, when pieced together, showed the extent of the rot that has set in the UK.

Shameless Mick, as the media called him, was well known, not just to the police but also to television shows. He had multiple relationships and fathered no less than 17 children. He was offered work but many times did not turn up.

He even tried to turn the children’s tragedy to his advantage: he wanted the money collected to give the children a funeral for himself.

In short, he soon became in the British public’s mind, an example of welfare society gone mad.

In an article on the (UK) Sunday Times, Harriet Sergeant gave a graphic description of how the rot has spread.

Take a man, Jordan, a 35-year-old former offender, who wanted to go straight. He had got a job but was in arrears with his rent.

The woman from the housing association sat with him and went through his figures. After tax, he was left with £928 a month. Rent was £500 and council tax a further £100. That left £328 to live on, not to mention the cash he needed to pay off his debts.

Now imagine, Ms Sergeant wrote, Jordan has a sister. She is 30 and single with two pre-school children. She earns a wage similar to Jordan. But at the end of the month her finances are different, very different, despite the £300 a week she spends on childcare.

As a working mother, she is entitled to working tax credit, child tax credit and council tax, housing and child benefit. This amounts to £25,900 (of which £18,719) is tax credit. Add to that her salary and she has a monthly spendable income of £3,152, compared to her brother’s £328. According to the website turn2us.entitledto.co.uk she is entitled to a tax credit of just 10p.

The truth is that tax credits have turned the UK into a country of benefit scroungers. Getting by, and living quite well, on a combination of wages and tax credits has become a way of life for many young people.

I am writing this because we Maltese usually follow the UK after some years’ delay. I have written about this many times and from what I see, the number and extent of benefit scroungers are on the increase and is not being tackled.

On the contrary, loose talk about people wanting social accommodation, etc can only inflate their numbers and expectations. I notice that many today have a misplaced sense of entitlement: that the State owes them this and that, inflated by politicians looking for easy votes.

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Don’t they give new MPs some lessons in parliamentary procedure?

I think not. Only last week, a minister was replying to one of Silvio Parnis’ usual Parliamentary Questions referring to a problem by one of his constituents, giving name and other information under separate cover.

But then the minister, no doubt beleaguered by his new responsibility, just went on and mentioned the name of the person about who the question was.

The minister was not corrected by his staff at the ministry, nor was he pulled up by the Chair.

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