Wednesday was a no good, very bad day at the Prime Minister’s office at Palazzo Chigi. As if the terrible news coming from Brussels was not enough, with Fitto’s nomination as vice president of the Commission still stuck in its tracks, with the Socialists stalling and the PD not offering Meloni the support she had hoped for, President Sergio Mattarella added to her headaches with his official note condemning Elon Musks’s interference-by-tweet, enough to send the premier up the walls.

What incensed her the most was not so much the president's position, but the fact that he chose to give the highest degree of solemnity to his words. It would have been fine if it was in answer to a question, Palazzo Chigi fumed. But an official note “in response to a private citizen” was too much, and even worse, with an appeal to national sovereignty that sounded like a rebuke against those who have touted sovereignty so much, and seem to have forgotten about it in practice.

The first reaction from the government headquarters subtly revealed the anger raging behind closed doors. The usual “government sources” let it be known that “We always listen with great respect to the words of the president of the........

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