Episode 230

The EU crisis goes on and on. Brexit, anti-EU governments in Hungary and Austria, sceptics in power in Portugal, insurrection and repression in Spain, Greece is sullen and broken. And now Italy, where the election of a viable coalition government of the populist left and right appears to have been scuppered by its president. His first ploy was to veto the populists' choice for finance minister – Prof. Paolo Savona – and then install a former IMF austerity veteran, Carlo Cottarelli (known in Italy as ‘Mr. Scissors’), as caretaker prime minister; fresh elections now loom on the horizon. So, we invited Federico Gatti, London correspondent of the Italian Broadcaster Mediaset, to discuss this very Italian imbroglio.

And breaking the glass ceiling; the long-awaited breakthrough of women to the top in the professions has been more talked about than realized. Although Britain has a woman head of state and a woman prime minister, only a fool would say that women run the country. In fact, a review this week suggested that many firms seemed to merely pay lip service to diversity at the top. What’s needed is a vision for equality. So, keeping with our Italian theme, we invited Paola Diana, author, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and all-round ceiling breaker who has been tackling these issues head-on in Italy via her best-selling book there, which has now been translated into English.

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