Nicholas Farrell Nicholas Farrell

Diary – 13 September 2003

Why being called mad by Berlusconi is not necessarily an insult

Last week The Spectator interviewed Silvio Berlusconi, and there followed a political furore that dominated the Italian news for – well, at least a couple of days. The cause of the crisis was the opinion of Italy’s 57th Italian post-war prime minister on the subject of judges. This is a field in which he is expert, as a result of 500 raids in the past decade by the Guardie di Finanza on the various tendrils of his media empire. Il Cavaliere – as he is nicknamed – told us that Italian judges are ‘antropologicamente diversi’ from the rest of us for two reasons: (1) they are left-wing; and (2) they are mad anyway. All hell broke loose. Even I became newsworthy. One of Berlusconi’s supporters went so far as to claim that Boris Johnson and I were drunk when we conducted the interview, an allegation with no foundation whatever.

On the whole, I think Berlusconi – a Latino Thatcherite – a very good thing for Italy. A dictator? Come off it. Tony Blair has far more power. Yet Martin Jacques in the Guardian last July called him ‘the most dangerous political figure in Europe’. This is very condescending to the Italian people. Il Cavaliere is Prime Minister by popular demand, with a bigger majority than any of his 56 predecessors. As for the conflict-of-interest point, he may be a media mogul, but he is a media mogul who – contrary to what the media keep telling us, so disproving their own point – does not control the media.

In my biography of Mussolini, published in July, I argue among other things that Il Duce was hugely popular with Italians. Rather mischievously, I had wanted to ask Berlusconi, ‘Why was Mussolini more popular than you?’ The right moment failed to pop up.

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