Salvini’s former partner announces break-up on Instagram, he replies on Facebook

Elisa Isoardi, a former model who hosts the Italian version of Ready Steady Cook, announced the end of the three-year relationship with Matteo Salvini, with a photograph of the couple in happier times, lying on a bed together.

The picture showed Ms Isoardi, dressed in a fluffy white dressing gown, smiling at the camera while a bare-chested Mr Salvini nuzzled her neck.

“It’s not what we have given each other that I will miss but what we still had to give each other,” Ms Isoardi wrote, citing a contemporary Italian poet. “With immense respect for the true love that there was, thank you Matteo.”

The announcement was made just as Mr Salvini was travelling to Ghana to discuss migration and how to prevent West Africans from trying to reach Europe via Libya.

Mr Salvini responded on his own Instagram account by posting a picture of himself with his arms outstretched, captioned: “I never made public my private life, and I won’t start doing it now… I loved, I forgave, surely I also made mistakes, but I believed it all the way. Pity someone had other priorities.”

The Telegraph / Corriere Della Sera