Mario Draghi, Italy’s prime minister, tries (and fails) to resign

, who for the past 17 months has led an , was this week the guest at a dinner of its foreign press association—an occasion for banter as much as reflection. The joke that prompted him to laugh most heartily came from the association’s Turkish president, Esma Cakir. The parties in his government, she quipped, were just like the members of her association: “They all speak different languages.”As he was being driven to the presidential palace in Rome to submit his resignation on July 14th, Mr Draghi had reason to muse on the aptness of that remark. The senators of the Five Star Movement (M5S), the party in his coalition with the second-biggest representation in parliament, had earlier refused to support a motion of confidence in his government. The motion was intended to force through a package of measures to counter the effects of the energy crisis. The Five Stars argued that it was too modest. But the party objected in particular to the funding of a waste-to-energy plant for Rome that was judged to be less green than possible alternatives.