Ever since the shameful collapse of the last Prodi government, in which I had originally invested some hopes, I have taken the view that the best thing that I as a free man can do in the current Italian political situation is to refuse to vote. Voting for Berlusconi was out of the question, and after the Italian left had proved both utterly ( Read more... )

In the last few weeks, Italy has seen an important set of local elections - including the governments of the largest cities, Milan and Naples - and a set of national referenda. The results seem to have marked the moment when the long-expected collapse of Berlusconi and his party begin. All the referenda were lost, some humiliatingly: the ( Read more... )

I don't like Berlusconi. ( Read more... )

The High Council of the Judiciary (Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura, or CSM) is a constitutional organ of the Italian state that has no parallel in Britain and America. Presided by the President of the Republic, it is both the professional body and the high governance court for the whole order of judges, from the lowest to the highest level ( Read more... )

Quite apart from the appalling mutual hatred that has poisoned the air for years, and in which at this point it is useless to blame the original culprits - since the whole political spectrum has thrown itself in it with a will - there is the quite extraordinary self-importance, vanity, lack of sense of proportion, and preference for empty and ( Read more... )

It does not seem possible that Italian politics could become more repulsive and heartbreaking. Berlusconi and his enemies are playing a destructive game that does nothing but harm to the whole nation. The opposition is using the magistracy quite openly as a tool to attack the government, and its press organs are less than a step away from open ( Read more... )

Nothing since the treacherous behaviour of our government at the time of the Falklands War has made me so ashamed of being Italian as the appalling hero's welcome delivered to Hugo Chavez in the most beautiful city in the world. He should have been arrested and thrown in the local jail.

If you lived outside Italy ( Read more... )

I have refused to vote in the Italian elections, holding that none of the candidates on offer were worthy of even reluctant consent by a free man. Or by anybody free to choose. To have to choose between supporting Veltroni, Berlusconi or the lesser lists is a choice that demeans a human being, and I will not make it. Until the Italian political ( Read more... )

Cardinal Salvatore Pappalardo, Archbishop emeritus of Palermo, has died at 88. To people of my country and generation, this man stands for a time not to be forgotten: the time when, in the middle of terrible shocks and difficulties, Sicily and all Italy began to turn the corner in the struggle against the Mafia - accepting that it was a struggle, ( Read more... )