Bersani raps Renzi's knuckles

(ANSA) - Pistoia, July 25 - Former Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani said Monday the PD-led government of Premier Matteo Renzi should think a little more about people's day-to-day problems and less about an upcoming constitutional reform referendum. "We should also take a little time to work on other things, because people can't live off referendums just like they can't live off the electoral law," said Bersani, a leftwing critic of Renzi and himself a former premier. "The issues are employment, immigration, investments, the economy".
    Renzi has staked his political future on the October referendum on his constitutional reform law, which is designed to make Italy's notoriously slow, costly and unwieldy political machinery slimmer, faster, cheaper, and more efficient. He has said he will step down if a 'No' vote nixing his reforms prevails. His critics from within his own PD party have accused him of personal grandstanding to the detriment of the real issues the center-left party - which is still Italy's biggest, but whose primacy is slowly being eroded by the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) - should concern itself with.