At this point, it’s starting to feel like a Joel Schumacher film, a camp freak show from the Nineties with heavy make-up and flashing colours: Silvio Forever. Fifteen years ago, many Italians denied voting for Berlusconi, but in the end Forza Italia always ended up getting a ton of votes. Today many still deny voting for Forza Italia — and indeed very few actually vote for it (it’s polling at around 7% or less). But Silvio is still there, outsmarting the generation of politicians that — for better or for worse — he has shaped.

His party had been among the most ardent supporters of Mario Draghi, but today Berlusconi is allied with the main opposition party (Meloni’s Brothers of Italy) and Salvini’s League, which never fully digested the former head of the ECB. Forza Italia supported all the draconian health restrictions implemented over the past two and a half years, but today it is on the side of those who promise “no more restrictions”. A leader capable of similar somersaults in Italy is called a faccia di bronzo — a brass face — and indeed Silvio’s face is indistinguishable from the metal.

But Silvio’s no joke. He should be taken very seriously. First of all, the centre-Right coalition desperately needs his votes if it wants to have a shot at gaining at majority, and Silvio won’t sell them cheap. Moreover, Silvio has a powerful weapon up his sleeve: the Italian Left. After spending more than a decade depicting him as the Embodiment of Evil, the Democratic Party and Left-wing newspapers started using Silvio against the so-called “populist Right” — embodied then by Salvini.