A Cat’s Chance in Hell

July 28, 2008 · Filed Under Italian politics · Comment

If you were unaware, which you may be if you are not from Italy, most of the public TV stations here are influenced by Italy’s rag tag bunch of political masters. This means that the news is presented in such a way as to support the ruling junta.

People are aware of this, especially Antonio Di Pietro’s Italia dei Valori political party, which is about the only party which is attempting to represent the wishes of the Italian people. Trying to make the TV channels here a little more impartial is also one of Di Pietro’s aims. (The English version of Di Pietro’s web site is not working at the moment - I wonder why).

To achieve this purpose, Di Pietro, along with Italy’s Radical party got together to propose Leoluca Orlando for the position of president of the body which watches over Italy’s RAI state TV network. Only the candidature is being firmly blocked by Berlusconi’s boys, who obviously fear losing the ability to manipulate the way in which RAI is operated.

In protest, Italy’s Radicals have staged a sit-in at the premises of the watchdog which monitors RAI.

As a matter of interest, Leoluca Orlando is an ex-mayor of Palermo, and is strongly anti-mafia. This is something which may not endear him to all those politicians whose fingers are stuck in Italy’s pie, and who have ‘friends’ whose wishes must be respected.

Despite the support of Italy’s Radical party and their mini-protest, Mr Orlando has a cat’s chance in hell of winning the presidency, which will be handed to someone much more ‘friendly’. Just wait and see.

Tags: Italian, Italian politics, Italians, Italy, TV

Zero Tolerance

June 24, 2008 · Filed Under Italian TV · Comment

I watched an interesting fly on the wall type documentary the other day entitled ‘Tolleranza Zero’ - ‘Zero Tolerance’ (Yes, at times Italian and English are extremely similar).

This program was shown on La7, one of Italy’s public TV channels, and was about, as you might expect, how the Italian police are dealing with crime in and around Milan in Italy.

What came across to me was the high level of professionalism exhibited by the sometimes maligned Italian ‘polizia’. The ‘polizia’ is not the same as the para-military ‘carabinieri’, by the way, although the polizia does have a similar function. For more information on Italy’s many police type bodies, you might like my old post called ‘They Got Guns‘.

Certainly the Milanese polizia appear to be doing their job, and doing it rather well. Indeed, the recent proposals to put soldiers on the streets in Italy appear to be something of a slap in the face for this organisation, which is something of a shame.

Still, politicians who don’t interfere wouldn’t be good politicians, now would they?!

As an aside, the few documentaries which appear on Italian TV, usually far too late in the evening, are, for the most part, very well made.

Tags: documentary, Italian, Italy, law, order, police, television, TV

Yes, Prime Minister

May 30, 2008 · Filed Under England · Comment

For the uninitiated, which means most of my Italian readers, Yes, Prime Minister was a comedy (as in funny), which appeared on BBC tv in the UK for good few years.

Basically, this wonderful series, which became Yes, Prime Minister ran for a good few years, and can probably be regarded as being British TV as its very best.

A few snippets of these shows are to be found on YouTube, and here is one for your deliction. It’s a famous sketch in which the main British newspapers are summed up. Enjoy:

The thing is, Italy’s horribly sensitive politicians would never let such a scandalous show exist here. Well, I’ve never heard of an Italian equivalent, although I’d love to.

Tags: bbc, Italian, Italy, Politics, TV, UK, Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister