The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, launched an attack on The Times yesterday, criticising recent articles focused on his friendship with an aspiring model.
In a series of television interviews, he said that the coverage was inspired by a business dispute with the rival media magnate Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation, which is the parent company of this newspaper.
With two days to go before Italians vote in the European elections Mr Berlusconi, 72, said that the coverage was News Corp’s response to his Government’s decision last December to double the amount of VAT levied on Sky Italia, which is part of News Corp, to 20 per cent.
Mr Berlusconi’s Mediaset group owns rival television stations and other media in Italy. “I don’t mean to be nasty, but unfortunately with the VAT episode there was a breakdown in relations with the Sky group and with Murdoch’s group, which has published a series of very critical articles attacking me,” Mr Berlusconi told Canale 5, part of his Mediaset empire.
He is said to have taken particular umbrage at a leader in The Times on Monday entitled “The Clown’s Mask Slips”. Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, also wrote an opinion piece in The Times this week drawing parallels between Mr Berlusconi’s behaviour and that of the Roman Emperor Tiberius.
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6433541.ece
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