Recently, I’ve been experiment with the (automated) analysis of parliamentary speeches using Wordfish and Wordscores. I’ve been analysing Italian parliamentary speeches, and downloaded the XML records of plenary sessions in the Camera dei Deputati (go structured data!).

One of the things I learned from parsing the data was that only about five hundred of the six hundred thirty deputies in the Camera have actually spoken in a plenary session so far. For some deputies, that’s unsurprising, as they hold posts in the government and thus are too busy to make speeches in the plenary. Analogous reasoning holds for some of the Presidents of the various parliamentary committees.

But then there are around eighty individuals not in government who still haven’t spoken, almost a year into the legislature. Here they are, the Lazy Eighty:

• UDC (6): DE POLI Antonio, DELFINO Teresio, NARO Giuseppe, OPPI Giorgio, PISACANE Michele, RUGGERI Salvatore
• PdL (60): ABELLI Gian Carlo, ANGELI Giuseppe, ANGELUCCI Antonio, ARACRI Francesco, ARACU Sabatino, ARMOSINO Maria Teresa, BARBA Vincenzo, BERARDI Amato, BIAVA Francesco, BONCIANI Alessio, CALABRIA Annagrazia, CATONE Giampiero, CESARO Luigi, COSENZA Giulia, DEL TENNO Maurizio, DELL’ELCE Giovanni, DISTASO Antonio, DIVELLA Francesco, GALATI Giuseppe, GHEDINI Niccolo’, GIACOMONI Sestino, GIRO Francesco Maria, GRIMALDI Ugo Maria Gianfranco, HOLZMANN Giorgio, IAPICCA Maurizio, MANNUCCI Barbara, MARINI Giulio, MARTINELLI Marco, MILANESE Marco Mario, MINARDO Antonino, MINASSO Eugenio, MISTRELLO DESTRO Giustina, MISURACA Dore, MOTTOLA Giovanni Carlo Francesco, MURGIA Bruno, NICOLUCCI Massimo, PARISI Massimo, PERINA Flavia, PETRENGA Giovanna, PISO Vincenzo, PITTELLI Giancarlo, PROIETTI COSIMI Francesco, ROSSI Mariarosaria, RUBEN Alessandro, SAMMARCO Gianfranco, SCALERA Giuseppe, SCALIA Giuseppe, SCAPAGNINI Umberto, SCELLI Maurizio, SILIQUINI Maria Grazia, SIMEONI Giorgio, STAGNO D’ALCONTRES Francesco, STANCA Lucio, STASI Maria Elena, TOTO Daniele, TRAVERSA Michele, TREMAGLIA Mirko, VALENTINI Valentino, VELLA Paolo, VESSA Pasquale
• PD (7): BONAVITACOLA Fulvio, CALEARO CIMAN Massimo, DAL MORO Gian Pietro, GAGLIONE Antonio, GINOBLE Tommaso, LUONGO Antonio, SPOSETTI Ugo
• Lega Nord (3): FORCOLIN Gianluca, MUNERATO Emanuela, SALVINI Matteo

I don’t want to say that the more you speak in the plenary, the better parliamentarian you are. Perhaps speaking less means doing more — l’Italia del fare, invece dell’Italia che chiacchiera. That’s probably the defence that Massimo Calearo would use. But some of these politicians are doing themselves no favours, leaving themselves open to accusations that they are either pretty faces (Annagrazia Calabria, Barbara Mannucci) or greybeards  (Mirko Tremaglia, anybody?)