Berlusconi's last attempt... or everybody go home!

Wednesday, 25 September 2013. In order to fight a “coup against the leader of the centre-right” - as Silvio Berlusconi put it, all the PDL (People of Freedom) party members involved in the government ready to resign.

“Let's go home, Angelino,” says Silvio Berlusconi, “all of us”.

After meeting up to define the next steps of a strenuous opposition against the ousting of Silvio Berlusconi, the allies of the former prime minister seem ready to resign from their posts, starting from the PDL's MPs (by the way: everything started a week after the rebirth of Forza Italia – the original Berlusconi's party – was announced, so this might sign the definitive end of PDL).

“I haven't been sleeping for 55 days” said Silvio Berlusconi (trying to make it clear that wasn't due to infamous bunga-bunga parties or any other activities involving women) “I have lost 11 kilos” (which, by the way, might have been greeted as good news from his girlfriend Francesca Pascale).

When 500m euro you have to pay, that's not exactly the best way to start the day

Tuesday, 17 September 2013. On the eve of a vote over Silvio Berlusconi's eviction from the Senate of Italy, the Supreme court confirms his family's company has to pay over 500m euro in damages to media rival CIR, owned by De Benedetti family.

Silvio Berlusconi: seeing it coming?

Italy Supreme Court's ruling hasn't been very favourable to Silvio Berlusconi recently, after upholding accusations of tax fraud in the beginning of August, yesterday the Corte Suprema di Cassazione (this is the official name of the court of last resort in Italy) ruled that Berlusconi family’s Fininvest holding company had wrongfully gained control of Mondadori publishing house by bribing a judge (Vittorio Metta is his name) back in 1991, thus they have to pay more than half a million euro to De Benedettis' CIR.

This is what Berlusconi should do, according to experts (and laymen)

Saturday, 14 September 2013. As Italy awaits the vote on the political future of Silvio Berlusconi, friends and foes send their advices to the former prime minister.

Silvio Berlusconi: in a real pickle?

Next Wednesday, 18 September 2013, a commission will vote on barring Silvio Berlusconi from the Senate of Italy for good: after the conviction for tax fraud the former prime minister finds himself in a pickle (Berlusconi is said to be in such a disheartened mood that somebody quoted him saying “it'd be better if I died”...)

Berlusconi is the target of a lobby plot, according to his daughter Barbara

Saturday, 7 September 2013. Barbara Berlusconi, in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, says that a lobby is trying do to her father in.

Barbara Berlusconi with her father Silvio

Barbara Berlusconi was at the business workshop in Cernobbio's beautiful Villa d'Este, when she was reached by a quite unusual interviewer, the (former?) confidante of her mother Veronica Lario (the interview was published by Rome's newspaper Il Messaggero), asking Barbara to comment the Silvio Berlusconi's legal woes and take a stance in the entangled situation of Italian politics.

«The story of my father and of my family is not that of a handful of tax evaders. [...] The story of Silvio Berlusconi can not end in shame» she said, referring to the recent conviction of the media tycoon for tax fraud, «There are those who want to hunt my father from politics for their own interests.

Berlusconi cross: Napolitano left him out of the life Senator's list

Thursday, 29 August 2013. Becoming a life Senator could have meant to Silvio Berlusconi a way out from legal woes, but Giorgio Napolitano did not include the former prime minister in the list of celebrities. Too bad.

An angry Berlusconi (Photograph: Reuters/Alessandro Bianchi)

Of course Berlusconi's People of Freedom party put all the pressure they could to get the former prime minister in the list of newly appointed life Senators, but in the end they had to cope with the fact that their leader will not be granted the honour, perhaps because he is not a former head of state nor a distinguished personality in the arts and sciences (nope, bunga-bunga parties do not count as achievement in arts).

Berlusconi did not take it well (actually he is cross!), since it could have meant cutting the Gordian knot in a situation where he doesn't seem to find a way out: in few days the parliament will be voting on his expulsion from the Senate, following his conviction for tax fraud, and he is more and more frightened by the prospect (nope, the European Court of Human Rights might not grant his salvation).