Long Hot Summer
Yes, it’s going to be one long hot summer for Italy’s tanned prime minister. At the moment he’s trying to fend off an embarassingly official accusation deriving from the White House, of all places.
This accusation hints that Italy is a country infamous for corrupt government practices. Shock horror!
And that’s not all, according to an unofficial press kit distributed to journalists on Air Force One, Berlusco is also something of a political novice. This political novice, otherwise known as Silvio Berlusconi, continues the text of the press kit, only managed to become Italian prime minsiter thanks to his notable influence on Italy’s media.
This unbelievably frank assessment of Italy’s richest ever prime minister did not top there. Oh no. It went on to state that Berlusconi is hated by many! However, it’s not all negative, the kit does point out that Berlusco is respected for his ability to exploit ‘bella figura’ to good effect.
At least this is not a bad thing to say about Berlusconi the former puppet show promoter. Yes, the press briefing happens to mention that the tanned one used to make a few extra dollars by selling tickets to puppet shows he organised.
Italy’s biggest entrepreneur started off young, or so it would seem, and one doubts that the CIA have got their facts wrong. Other indications of budding entrepreneurial spirit highlighted in this gem of a text, which was taken from the recently updated ‘Encyclopedia of World Biography’, are that Berlusco sold vacuum cleaners and did writing tasks for his fellow students while he was at university. He charged a fee for this service, naturally.
This officially painted and not too flattering portrait of Silvio, has led to the eruption of a mini-storm between White House representatives and Berlusconi’s boys, as you might imagine. And all on the eve of the G8!
The White House has tried to wriggle out of this incident, but, one fears, the damage has already been done.
‘Et tu Brute?’, is probably how Berluco opened a telephone conversation between himself and Bush, one supposes!
Boy, would I loved to have tapped that call!
The question is: Will Mr B now bring a case for defamation against Bush? No chance! The case would have to be heard in the USA, and even Berlusco, powerful though he may be, would not be able to wield enough of his influence to have a case heard in the US of A watered down.
Maybe Berlusconi should spend this year’s long hot summer cooling down by the pool at his villa in Sardinia. He could even have Mara Carfagna over to help him make some policy decisions and decide how to tackle what could turn out to be a very long and cold winter.
Here is a link to the Encyclopedia of World Biography entry which has caused such a stink: Berlusconi, Silvio - click early - it won’t be there for long!
Berlusconi the Wizard 2
Last week I wrote a post entitled Berlusconi the Wizard about a lovely little cartoon of Berlusconi tackling the Naples rubbish problem in is own inimitable way. Well, I’ve found said cartoon, which appeared in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
It can be seen here on PressDisplay.com - if the link does not take you to the right edition, just use the little calendar to find the 20th May edition of Corriere della Sera. The ‘toon is on the front page, and if you click on said page, you’ll see the full size version.
Actually, the Berlusconi as a wizard theme is used in quite a few of the cartoons appearing on the front page of what is one of Italy’s main newspapers. To see more, have a browse through last and this week’s editions.
Happy chuckles!
Of Earnings On-Line, Italian Politicians, and E-Mule
You may have heard that the outgoing Italian government played a little, er, joke on the Italian people. This amusing little end-of-party trick involved placing details of the declared earnings of every single Italian, who made a declaration back in 2006, on-line on a central government website for all to see.
Funny little things like the intricate and complex Italian privacy laws did not seem to deter those who made the decision to go ahead and do this. Although whosoever decided to to go ahead did so very quietly and not too many knew about it.
However, many soon found out and word spread like wildfire. All those curious to see how much celebrities and their next door neighbours earnt back in 2005 actually managed to cause the web site to fall over. Others cast doubts as to whether or not the government really had the authority to put such details online. The doubts cast raised further doubts leading to a formal complaint from the Italian Privacy watchdog and the removal of the information from the website some 24 hours after it went live.
End of story? Well, not quite. Firstly the incident has led to a real hubbub here, and secondly, an enterprising indicidual or individuals managed to ’scrape’ all the online tax declaration information from the site while it was up and running. This means that those who are still curious simply have to search for ‘Redditi’ within the E-Mule peer to peer system, and they will find the exact same information as was available on the Italian government website - even if certain details may have been altered, so the accuracy of this secondary source could be called into question.
Apparently the Italian government had been planning to do this for some time, but had waited until the end of the elections.
Ah, these Italian politicians, they really know how to endear themselves to the Italian people. Although, in some respects it may not be such a bad thing, in that it would be very interesting to see just how much tax all those Italians with big flash motor boats actually pay.
A sort of name and shame manoeuvre, I suppose. And potentially very embarrassing. Even if, knowing that the government can do such a thing, a few more people may be encouraged to declare a little more of their earnings.
All Italy would then need is effective and responsible politicians to spend the resulting windfall.
The ICI Question
ICI, pronounced, approximately, ‘eechee’ is a little property tax which everybody in Italy who has a house is supposed to pay. It’s a funny little tax, and the local Milan council does not even bother to send out reminders. Unlike the in the UK, where a nice little bill will drop through your letter box announcing that you need to pay you glorious little council tax bill.
For some time now, Italian politicians have been making noises about abolishing this little tax, and, on the face of it, this looks to be no bad thing. Why? Well, in a recent article in Il Sole 24 Ore, there was a list of the average ICI payments which are supposed to be made.They ranged from around €400 to under €50.
This means, one suspects, that this little tax costs much more to administer than the income it’s supposed to be raising. Hence, again, one suspects, the keenness with with the politicos are going about having this tax ended.
Indeed, one call almost say that the politicians are itching to remove ICI. Ho ho.
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