Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics.

This week we're going to be talking about Italy and trying to make sense of the referendum

at the weekend which has resulted in the resignation of the Italian Prime Minister Mateo

Renzi and a whole new wave of speculation, some of which we indulged in in previous podcasts

about what this might mean for the future of the euro and the new populist wave that's

sweeping Europe.

I'm joined by Helen Thompson, Marharraffi Attal and I'm delighted to say we're also joined

by Chris Bickerton who's written widely about Italian politics and also about the new

populism.

And his book The EU A Citizen's Guide was a very influential publication just before

the Brexit referendum.

Chris I'm going to start with you just to try and make sense I'm sure I'm not alone

here and wanting a little bit of help in making sense of Italian politics and how Rendi

got himself into a situation where his entire political career was staked on the outcome

of referendum, it's easy to say with hindsight, but it was always going to be likely that

he would struggle because he also made it a referendum on his government.

So how did he get boxed in like this?

How did he wind up staking everything on this vote?

It does seem a very rash thing to do and people describe it as a strategic mistake, as

a tactical error.

I don't think it really was.

I think it tells us something about the kind of politician that Rendi is and has been

...