What kind of country is Italy where Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted of tax fraud and the judgement upheld by a senior court and yet they are to consider whether to ban him from political office?
He still has the outstanding charge of using under age prostitutes and yet he will not go to prison because he is too old!
Surprisingly after all this, he has not a grey hair on his head!
When you look at all the hoo ha over MP’s expenses look as though it was on a different planet.
Being caught with your hand in the till in the UK means your political downfall and although having an affair is not now so much frowned upon, it does not exactly go in your favour.
It really makes a duck house look trivial!
As Andrew says, I have seen people in high office in Latin America who should have been locked up but instead became presidents. Just yesterday, Japanese deputy prime minister, Taro Aso, refused to resign despite having to retract his comment that suggested Japan should follow the Nazi example in the way they set about changing the country's constitution. Osborne should not be Chancellor in the UK following revelations about his family trust's tax evasion by basing itself partly on the Isle of Man.
What makes Silvio so different is that he is blatantly dodgy, dishonest, sexist, exclusivist, egotistic and more and that he denies it all by being one or more of those things each time he opens his mouth.
Different cultures expect different things from their politicians, Jane. For many, it shows that he has umph, they consider it normal as they're all at it anyway. France isn't that much different either: DSK, Juppé, Cahuzac et al. The list is endless and they all seem to come back to life again!
Brian, a lovely diatribe against Berlusconi, but you haven't answered my question?
What kind of country is Italy when they are even considering whether he can remain in political office?
ma parliamo dell'Italia e in Italia è cosi, possiamo dire che è quasi "normale"...! ;-) and perhaps one of the reasons why I came to France rather than Italy despite it being my "first love"
Gotta be in here Jane. Just finished reading several paper's reporting on the story. I had a look at La Repubblica and La Stampa of course.
Everything to do with Silvio is total farce. Even the hair, which is lovingly coloured virtually every day. He is nearly 77 years old, heads a media empire that owns anything that can say anything in Italy and clearly feels quite justified in using one of his own TV stations to denounce the Italian supreme court for turning down his appeal for something that 99% of the Italian public take for granted he did and will get away with. As for the wire tapping, or hacking as we might say, conviction for what Il Giornale did and also conviction and also his appeak against the sentence to seven years in prsion and a lifetime ban on public office for paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abusing his office to cover it up and several other cases running and running...
Basically Jane, he is somebody who will cheat and connive until he is in his grave and then perhaps from beyond as Beppe Grillo said: Berlusconi is "Una mummia è per sempre, imbalsamato come Lenin al Cremlino" (A mummy is forever, embalmed like Lenin in the Kremlin).