Giovanni Spinella is a ward chairman within Hampstead and KIlburn Conservative Association. Let there be no doubt: should Silvio Berlusconi’s government fall to a no-confidence vote tomorrow, the cause will not be the various allegations of his personal and professional conduct that have plagued him from the start of his political career. What will bring […]
By Tim Montgomerie On Wednesday David Cameron flew to Rome for dinner with his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi. Photographs of Mr Cameron's visits with foreign leaders are featured prominently on the Downing Street flickr account. From Obama to Merkel, from Zadari to Erdogan, there's a photo for every visit. But there's no official photo of […]
Last weekend Silvio Berlusconi addressed a rally in Rome of 150,000 supporters with the soundtrack to Star Wars as his musical backing. “Love always wins over envy and hatred” was the slogan of an event designed to get his party's candidates reinstated for important regional elections in Lazio. The candidates were disqualified after party officials […]
Opponents of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will gather in Rome today as part of 'No Berlusconi Day', a day of protests almost entirely organised by bloggers, twitterers and Facebook users. Italy's controversial leader is facing problems on many fronts: The latest suggest that he has a history of links to the Sicilian Mafia, and […]
The embattled Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has taken the time to declare his support for Tony Blair becoming European President through a letter published on the front page of a small circulation newspaper in Milan, Il Foglio (of which, according to The Times, his estranged wife is the largest stakeholder and one of his […]
He is arrogant. He calls himself "Superman" and recently boasted: "I am by far the best prime minister Italy has had in its 150-year history." He is intolerant. He is taking legal action against a number of newspapers who have criticised him and recently took a commercial interest in the last TV station that had […]
Some key numbers from the latest ComRes survey of European opinion: French Right set to increase number of MEPs: "While confidence in Sarkozy among the French public is low, the party appears set to outpace the Socialist Party in June. In 2004, then President Chirac’s UMP polled a humiliating 17% of the vot e with […]
Yesterday's Times reported Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ambition to create a party of the Right for Italy that is as powerful and stable as Germany's CDU or Britain's Conservative Party. Italy's political party system has long been fragmented and Italy's Left is more fragmented today than for many years. But in a weekend of […]
French President Nicolas Sarkozy – currently President of the EU – failed to win agreement from Central and Eastern European nations for support for EU-wide action on climate change although certain concessions have brought the possibility of agreement closer. "The EU," reports AFP, "has set a triple "20" objective for 2020: slashing greenhouse gas emissions […]
Jacopo Barigazzi writes a very positive account of the Italian PM’s first 100 days back in office for the latest edition of Newsweek: "In his first 100 days in office, Silvio Berlusconi may have done the impossible: to a degree unprecedented in modern Italian history, he asserted control over this seemingly ungovernable nation. The opposition […]