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Cover Story

Forza Berlusconi!

Boris Johnson and Nicholas Farrell

Saturday, 6th September 2003

The embattled Italian Prime Minister summoned Boris Johnson and Nicholas Farrell to his Sardinian retreat, and accorded them an insight into his success

Forza Italia! Come on, Italy! The very name, with its football-terrace echo, is enough to wrinkle the nostrils of Anna Lindh and the Euro-nomenklatura. Forza Italia was the movement he founded in 1994 with his $12 billion fortune, and with which he first seized the premiership, only to lose it when his right-wing allies ratted on him, and the lawyers closed in. He was indicted on various charges of bribery and corruption. He struggled on in opposition. But the forza was strong in Berlusconi and in 2001 he came storming back.

From port to port went the Forza Italia cruise ship – not unlike the one on which the 17-year-old Berlusconi had sung – and adoring crowds were produced for the cameras. At a cost of $20 million he peppered 12 million Italian households with his magnificent, 128-page all-colour Berluscography, An Italian Life. In it they found a story of fantastic, volcanic, American self-propulsion; the early skill in Latin and Greek, a facility he hired for cash to less able pupils; the devoted friends who have remained with him as he expanded his empire, beginning with the town he built in 1960 in a swamp outside Milan which has 4,000 inhabitants and which seems from its photographs to be agreeable in a Milton Keynes-ish way.

They learnt of his first wife and how their feelings for each other turned 'from love to friendship' before he acquired his second wife, knock-out blonde soap-star Veronica Lario. There was news about his suits (Ferdinando Caraceni), his cook, his cancer and, above all, the testimony of his mother Rosella. Silvio's mother said Silvio was a hell of a guy, and whatever Silvio's mother said, other mothers took very seriously. Studded on every page were his cheery chipmunk grin and his Disneyish nose. To every small Italian businessman he stood for optimism and confidence and an ability to get things done. And here, in the first stop of our wacky races golf-cart tour, is a lesson in his can-do approach.

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