INES TABUSSO
00lunedì 17 aprile 2006 00:19
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Anton La Guardia watches the political games played in London and around the world. He has been the Diplomatic Editor of The Daily Telegraph since September 2000, having previously worked as Middle East Correspondent and Africa Correspondent. He is the author of "Holy Land, Unholy War: Israelis and Palestinians".
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
The Italian Ambassador's reception
Posted at: 20:35
Pity Italy’s diplomats, who don’t know whether their new master is Silvio Berlusconi or Romano Prodi.
The Italian diplomatic contingent in London is making a valiant effort at explaining their country’s political mess.
At an embassy breakfast yesterday, they predicted sunnily that the "vitality" shown by Italians in going to the polls would see them through the current troubles.
Economic reforms had started under Berlusconi and would continue under the new government. Policy on Iraq would not change much whoever was prime minister. And so on.
We journalists nodded politely, sipped our cappuccino and made jokes about the "mortadella" (Mr Prodi’s nickname) that was served.
Then, as we left, the real message came out. “Whatever you write, please don’t compare us to Argentina,” pleaded one envoy.
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Thursday, April 13, 2006
Berlusconi's expat blunder
Posted at: 19:35
Another Italian breakfast today, this time with Italian businessmen and journalists in the City.
And another round of self-flagellation over the state of Il Bel Paese. "When you see what has happened, it makes you cry," the opening speaker started.
The conversation never cheered up after that.
A stockbroker asked: "Will Italy have to leave the Euro?" Maybe Italy will even bring down the Euro, we mused.
A nice lady who had evidently had enough of reading British newspaper accounts of Silvio Berlusconi's buffoonery raised a question that everybody seemed to be asking: "When will the rest of the world have respect for us?"
Respect. The homeland of Michelangelo and Da Vinci craves nothing more than to be taken seriously.
The real trouble is that it cannot respect itself.
Berlusconi may have presided over an economy that is now the sickest man in a sick Europe, but half the country has voted for him.
Berlusconi's grin made him simpatico; Prodi's slogan of "serietà al governo" (seriousness in government) made him, well, dull.
To many Italians, Berlusconi's financial misdeeds are a sign that he is furbo (cunning), not a crook as his opponents argue.
If five years of "strong" government by the centre-Right could not push through the liberal economic reforms that the country needs, what chance that Romano Prodi's will succeed with a narrow majority and an unwieldy coalition that includes the unreformed "refounded" Communists?
As we bit sadly into our pastries, we found solace only in God. "Maybe Prodi will be struck by divine inspiration," said one Italian journalist, "Miracles do happen."
My gloomy morning highlighted one irony of the election campaign: the unexpected behaviour of Italian expatriates.
Mr Berlusconi's government had pushed for 2.7 million Italians living abroad to be granted a postal ballot, hoping that they would support him and his allies.
Instead the expats voted strongly in favour of Prodi's coalition – winning seven out of 12 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and four out of six in the Senate.
This proved decisive in giving the centre-left a narrow but crucial majority in the Senate.
What happened? One only needs to look at the audience at my breakfast, or at the Italian City types milling in the cafes here at Canary Wharf, to understand that for many young and ambitious Italians the only outlet is to leave country in search of good education and well-paid jobs.
These Italians clearly don't like what has been happening back home, and think Berlusconi's jokes are crude rather than funny.
At home Berlusconi infamously said that Italians who did not vote for him were coglioni (literally "testicles", but used as "dickheads" or "schmucks").
Outside the country, though, many Italians thought Berlusconi was the coglione.