Ancona, Italy | Before Giorgia Meloni strides on to the stage in a piazza in the Adriatic port of Ancona, the crowd is whipped up not by nationalistic anthems but by something rather more prosaic – a medley of soft rock that includes the ZZ Top hit Gimme All Your Lovin’.

The music is as unthreatening as the image presented by Ms Meloni, who is expected to become Italy’s first female prime minister and the first far-right leader of a major eurozone economy after elections next month.

The Telegraph London