My Italian chums just tend to weep uncontrollably at the very mention of Silvio Berlusconi’s name. He has given them a television system that is unwatchable for anyone who is not moronic or under heavy sedation. His wife walked out more or less accusing him of paedophilia and it’s strongly implied that he’s been buying in prostitutes for his guests. To be fair he retorts “I never understood where the satisfaction is when you are missing the pleasure of conquest.” Oh yeah and he lost a court case for defamation for the Economist’s front page with the strapline “Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy”.
O
nly one man stands convinced that an appeal to Berlusconi’s better nature will turn him around. Only one man feels that he is the moral behemoth whose words by themselves have the power to make Mussolini’s heir see sense and start behaving like a decent human being.
My Irish chums just tend to swear uncontrollably at the very mention of Bono’s name. Here is what the Financial Times says he told a concert audience in Milan earlier this week.
“Italians have given many gifts to the world, modern physics, the renaissance . . . the piano, the gift of singing from Pavarotti to Puccini to Jovanotti to Zucchero. You have so many gifts.
“Well in the next few days . . . your leader will decide where he stands on the gift of life that lives beyond these shores.”
I’ve a passing familiarity with Zucchero’s oeuvre. It’s more merda than sugar unless portentous ballads in a Michael Bolton style are your tazza di té. Jovanotti is a rapper whom you can research for yourself but don’t build your hopes up. In any case both men’s gifts to the world count for rather less than Fermi’s, Marconi’s or Da Vinci’s. It’s a bit like saying “England has given the world Shakespeare, Milton, Norman Wisdom and the Noel Edmonds”. It may be true but it’s a bit of an incongruous ragbag.
This site’s pre-eminent hate figure is troubled by the Berlusconi regime’s contempt for anyone who is not a white small business owner or tax dodger. Italy is meeting a mere 3 per cent of its overseas aid commitments and while Bono can but feel a certain comradeship with Berlusconi’s tax dodging base his brand image relies heavily on him as the billionaire champion of the poor doggedly speaking for the voiceless in the halls of power. And in concert venues where you have to pay at least £60 a ticket to finance an entourage larger than the Irish army
Bob Geldof prefers to be the nasty multi-millionaire Dublin philanthropist in their bizarre double act. The way he put it was “What’s the legitimacy of this crowd of shysters to run the G7 this year? How dare they? How can you possibly trust any government that promises something, does nothing, and expect them to lead the world. How dare they?”
Ok the second “how dare they?” is a bit redundant but his point is a good one. Venomous contempt is about the only tone that is right to use when describing a creature like Berlusconi. If the BNP came to power in Britain with Robert Kilroy Silk as its leader the result would be something analogous to Berlusconi’s Italy. The outward appearance of parliamentary democracy would be preserved but the state would be run as a private kingdom and every sort of backward racist idea could be openly expressed. There is no better nature to appeal to and once again Bono struts the world stage like a pontificating imbecile.
Liam redux 
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