Matteo Renzi's plan to abolish Italian Senate runs into almost 8,000 amendments.
Senators are deliberately bombing attempts to clean up political spaghetti, and debated only three of them on day one.

Asking senators to vote for their own abolition was always going to be a tough mission – even for the ever-confident Matteo Renzi. So it is hardly surprising that the Italian prime minister's flagship reform bill – on which he has staked his career – has run into a few problems in the upper house of parliament – 7,850 of them, to be precise.

Opponents to the proposals – which would see the senate stripped of many of its powers and become a much smaller, unelected regional chamber – have tabled nearly 8,000 amendments which they want debated before the upper house moves to a first reading vote.

As long as these people populate parliament, it is not going to happen here... a bl.... shame