In the end, “Super Mario” was simply cold-shouldered out of Palazzo Chigi by the party leaders who had reluctantly put him there nearly 18 months ago. Hugely respected by other governments in the European Union and beyond, and popular with Italians, Mario Draghi is both resented and disliked by many of the party leaders who had formed his “national unity” coalition. He is resented because he, like previous technocrat Italian prime ministers, was only put into the prime minister’s role thanks to their own failure to form a solid governing coalition. He is disliked because he is naturally aloof and has little time for political vanities and even less for political games. Yet his government did not really fall because he is disliked, since that has been true throughout. It fell because a general election was due soon anyway and because those who are leading in the opinion polls presumably calculated that it was better to have the vote soon before anything came along to dent their prospects of power.