Silvio Berlusconi, Benito Mussolini and a bottle of champagne

Friday, 12 September 2003. Publication of excerpts from a Silvio Berlusconi's interview with The Spectator, released in Porto Rotondo (Sardinia), in the month of August. Bad jokes, this time, from the Italian tycoon.

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini

Not many people would ever describe Benito Mussolini as a “benvolent” leader who “sent people on holiday to confine”.

Berlusconi does it, in an interviewed by the British conservative magazine The Spectator, showing he has quite a peculiar idea about how Italy was run at that time.

Actually during the same interview Mr Berlusconi is describing the Italian judges – or at least some of them – as “mentally disturbed”. So he has a peculiar idea about many Italian matters, of the present and of the past. Or – perhaps – he just like having fun with his jokes.

Anyhow. The magazine quoted the Italian Prime Minister saying that “Mussolini never killed anybody” as he is comparing the former Fascist dictator with Saddam Hussein, a real villain.

Silvio like Benito?

The Jewish community of Rome, in the person of his President, Amos Luzzatto, says that Mr Berlusconi's words caused him “profound pain”.

Mussolini's persecution of Jews started in 1938, and some 7,000 people were deported. It is believed that almost 6,000 of them never came back alive.

This is a really bad joke, even if Berlusconi's quotes are quite often bad jokes, even if Silvio keeps saying that the misinterpretation is due to the bottle of champagne he's been drinking with Nicholas Farrell – the journalists (who just can't recall it) – as they chatted as good old friends.

Video from our YouTube Channel: Berluschannel