Today’s Venerdi in Repubblica has gone to town on the basis of a study released by the Istituto Cattaneo. The study [PDF] is presented misleadingly: the magazine gives only one diagram (for Milan) but the Cattaneo study only gives vote transfers for a number of cities/areas – Milano, Brescia, Como, Varese, Bologna, Modena, and Reggio Emilia.

The main lesson? No big transfer of votes from the Sinistra Arcobaleno to the Lega Nord.

The reason I’m blogging about it is that I already have a working paper on vote transfers, 2006-2008 which, I think, is technically and substantively superior to the Istituto Cattaneo, but I didn’t get two pages in Repubblica’s magazine. I’m sure there’s an Italian expression for sour grapes, but at the moment it escapes me.

[Okay, fare come la volpavolpe con l'uva, but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it].