The intriguing thing is not Silvio Berlusconi but the Italian people. So it is alleged that the prime minister has been paying escort girls to visit his parties. There are tapes and photos. Silvio breaks off a session with one girl to phone through congratulations to the newly elected Obama.
Is anybody surprised by these claims? No. Is Berlusconi likely to fall over this, as the British papers wishfully suggest? Absolutely not.
This is not Britain. This is not Gordon Brown. Europe may have a single currency but it has many mindsets and they are not growing any closer. I have yet to meet an Italian who thinks Berlusconi should resign over this. The courts found British lawyer David Mills guilty of accepting money from Berlusconi to give false testimony but the prime minister did not resign. It is hard to imagine the crime that would force him out.
No one in Berlusconi's party wants him to go. He created it. Everybody owes their position to him and will disappear, like the party itself, when he goes.
The newspapers enjoy having it both ways: pages of juicy details, then editorials saying how tacky it is to reduce politics to gossip. The media controlled by Berlusconi complains of an orchestrated conspiracy. The concept of loyal opposition doesn't exist in Italy. There are supporters, such as former minister Vittorio Sgarbi ("If Berlusconi does not gain sexual satisfaction he governs badly"), and there are conspirators.
The church, so loud on contraception, euthanasia and abortion, lays low. Berlusconi is seen as more pro-family and pro-life than the opposition. A family is still a family even when the husband is on the sofa promising an escort girl some help with her application for planning permission.
Continue ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/23/silvio-berlusconi-escort-girls-scandal
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