Italy's anti-immigration leader Matteo Salvini, who is trailing the far-right's Giorgia Meloni in the polls ahead of next week's general election, sought on Sunday to galvanise his hard-right, populist, eurosceptic base. "This is Italy, full of hope and dreams and looking to the future," Salvini told the crowd in the northern town of Pontida, which has for three decades been the venue for the annual mass gathering of the far right. On Sunday it was awash with the flags representing Italy's provinces and the banners of the General Labour Union (UGL), founded in 1996 from the ashes of the neo-fascist CISNAL union. Video: AFP Salvini's League party claimed 100,000 people had turned up, many bussed in to hear "Il Capitano", drink beer and buy T-shirts bearing Salvini's name and the slogan "Italians first". The League is trailing Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy (FDI), polling at 12% to the FDI's 24. Surveys suggest immigration is less of a concern for Italians than the rampant inflation squeezing already stagnant wages. Salvini hailed the result of the Swedish general election, where voters "sent the left packing" and ushered in an alliance of the right and far right. He...