Rose68

Grazie Silvio.

philat98

What for?

Rose68

I was expecting a reply like that. For bringing some humanity, empathy, geniality, to our worn out political system.

heritagestanley

What a load of cobblers.

philat98

Silvio got on well with Blair. He proposed Blair to be the president of the EU and backed him in the Iraq war. He let him stay in his luxury villas when he wanted.

C.2s

Obviously each person is entitled to their own opinion, but seeing as you raised this thread I wonder if I might ask you a few questions out of curiosity to try to understand your point of view?

1. Why have you chosen the title "The Knight"?
2. The things you have listed above seem to be personal qualities rather than policies. Do you think that personality is more important than policies for a politician?
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philat98

The title Caviliere is given to successful businessmen every year on May day. Berlusconi is "il caviliere" in Italian news. I dont think it translates into anything.
I read this morning that Forza Italia is in debt and could be bankrupted if another patron does not come forward.

modicasa

Its a sort of equivalent of an minor mbe or a certificate from the Chamber of commerce. Certainly not a knighthood.
In reply to the OP I didnt find him empathetic, genial or even human. I thought him an entirely self interested and self obsessed compulsive liar who was only out to feather his own nest and glorify himself. As he said, he only did Prime Ministering 'in his spare time'. He was the blueprint for Trump and BoJo. Not a legacy to be proud of.

philat98

It says s lot about Italy that someone who has had 577 visits by police, 2,500 court hearings and spent 174 million euros in lawyers' bills gets a state funeral.

Rose68

You mean the harassment, obsession, deep hatred, obstinacy, abuse... (shall I go on?) he had to put up with, by you know who?
Do you really believe all those allegations/accusations were based on actual evidence? Of course, there was some truth and he rightly paid for them, but is he the only politician /businessman to have made mistakes? Why was he particularly interesting to attack? (A bit of envy?)

With regards to his private life, who cares? Is it really relevant? I'm not stupid either, I know he made lots of mistakes as a politician, I voted for him once but I didn't the next time round. We can't deny he was a good "imprenditore" though, creating thousands of jobs.

philat98

It sounds like Nadine Dorries in the Daily Mail.

Rose68

]

No, personality isn't important, I just think that he was one of very few Italian politicians who managed to make himself understood, explaining very clearly and and simply his ideas, instead of carrying on and on without saying anything meaningful. . He had a way with words.
I was trying to attach an article I found in internet about when he received his 'onoreficienza', but my tech experience is not too good.

Plan B

An abiding memory from Peter Brookes a dozen years ago.

modicasa

The question is were they mistakes? He was an intelligent man, and knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that the Italian justice system is archaic and as a billionaire he could tease the trials along knowing that in the end they would run out of time. His private life is important, as soon as he became a public figure, it becomes important. He could have stayed a private citizen and nobody would really care, other than his mafia connections and how he built his business empire, how he built Milan 2 and how he broke the law creating Mediaset. As a politician he was charismatic, certainly when placed alongside all the grey idealogues elsewhere. But.. bribing MP's to cross the floor, buying off competition, passing laws ad personam and almost singlehandedly doubling the Italian national debt is not a great legacy. Rather it made what we now see politicians doing as acceptable behaviour. He came across as a smiling buffoon (see Boris) but was pretty ruthless - you only have to see how he managed to get his hands on Arcore Berlusconi’s Pad – italiafile to know that the result was what counted, not the means of obtaining it.

daniel_t

Let's have a bunga bunga funeral.

Rest of the first world: you get a state funeral for your extraordinary service to the country, like Winston Churchill, or if you're the monarch.

Italy: you get a state funeral for having caused irreversible damage to the country - in absolutely every single way. Enough said.