Do we like Giorgia Meloni?
Our score: 3 out of 10. Her government's laws and orders have hit rainbow families, and the real good (standing up to Trump, a stable government) is thinner than the harm.
Meloni grew up in Garbatella, a working-class corner of Rome, raised by her mum after her dad left when she was little. She got into politics at 15 through the youth wing of the post-war far-right MSI, per AFP. By 31 she was the youngest minister in a Berlusconi government, and in 2012 she co-founded Brothers of Italy, which became Italy's biggest party in 2022.
On the harm test, start with rainbow families. In 2024 she called surrogacy “an inhuman practice” and backed making it a universal crime. In March 2023 she demanded councils stop registering children with two mums or two dads. Then in October 2024 her party's law made seeking surrogacy abroad punishable by up to two years in prison and a €1 million fine; the head of Rainbow Families said it would effectively hit only gay couples.
The wider pattern is similar. AFP reported that she has called for a naval blockade of Africa's Mediterranean coast to stop migrants. Italy refused to sign an EU Council declaration on LGBT+ rights in May 2024, per Il Manifesto, and a G7 text she hosted dropped abortion; she denies backtracking. On climate, her ministers called the EU's 2035 combustion-engine ban “absurd” and an “ideological vision”.
She also plays hardball with critics. She sued journalists, and a Milan court ordered one to pay her €5,000 in damages for defamation over posts mocking her height; the journalist said it showed a freedom-of-expression problem. Separately, she was among those investigated over Italy's release of Libyan war-crimes suspect Osama Almasri, and she said in August 2025 she had been cleared. Parliament's lower house then refused to let three of her ministers be prosecuted.
Accuracy is a fair question too. Pagella Politica, an Italian fact-checker, checked 190 of her statements in 2025 and rated about 69 per cent imprecise or little to not at all reliable. It cautions that its sample isn't random, so it's not a measure of her overall honesty. She does score better in formal speeches than at party events and in interviews.
The recent drama is the Trump falling-out, and she comes out of it well. After Trump told an Italian TV channel she “begged” for a photo at the G7, she called it completely fabricated and said “Italy and I do not beg.” Her foreign minister called the claims offensive, and ministers from across her coalition backed her. Whatever you think of her politics, she took on the most powerful man in the room.