Why flashy Silvio’s demise holds a warning for Blair - by Ian Mcwhirter
First lesson: don't insult the electorate. Silvio Berlusconi's fate was surely sealed when he called voters "dickheads" – at least those who didn't agree with his tax cuts – at the height of the Italian election campaign. Mind you, that was relatively mild from the former prime minister of Italy. Earlier in the campaign, he'd called opposition supporters "coglioni" – literally "testicles". Well, it seems that enough of them had the balls to get rid of their prime minister – the latest in a long line of right-wing clowns going back to Mussolini. And yes, Berlusconi had a soft spot for Il Duce, insisting, against all evidence, that the Italian dictator had never killed anyone. Don Silvio compared himself to Napoleon and Jesus Christ and said he was the most dynamic leader in the world. So dynamic, in fact, that 90 court actions have been taken against him, ranging from bribing judges to tax evasion. Berlusconi was – is – one of the shadiest characters in modern European politics. He survived numerous prosecutions only because they lapsed under new statutes of limitation which Berlusconi introduced into Italian law
Berlusconi was elected by a cynical electorate which believed the modern myth that businessmen were better at running things than politicians simply because they have made lots of money. Running a country is not like running a business; the bottom line is very different for a start. It involves reconciling competing interests, not mastering them.
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