Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Il TIMES contro Berlusconi (anche)

Qualche propagandista sta cercando di far credere che il TIMES ce
l'abbia con Prodi e quindi gli preferisca Berlusconi. Non è affatto
così. Il giornalista MacIntyre, lo stesso dell'articolo che critica
Prodi, ha scritto anche un articolo che critica Berlusconi - e dicendo
cose molto più serie e gravi delle "sfumature pacioccone e buffe"
usate con Prodi. Quindi il TIMES  NON SUGGERISCE DI VOTARE BERLUSCONI:
semplicemente presenta dei ritratti critici di Prodi e Berlusconi (a
firma dello stesso giornalista, tra l'altro).
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2123867,00.html
Knight in tarnished armour faces defeat in his final joust
By Ben Macintyre
They bank with him, buy his papers, cheer his team, but now voters are
set to cut their losses with a billionaire leader who built an empire
but divided the land 
 
ON THE edge of Milan is the city that Silvio built. Far from the grit
and grime of Italy’s northern commercial capital, it is an oasis of
calm, an exclusive enclave of terracotta flats with sports complex,
swimming pool and tinkling fountains. 
This large private suburb, constructed in the 1970s and now home to
10,000 Milanese, was the first building block of Silvio Berlusconi’s
empire. With typical braggadocio, the young entrepreneur called it
“Milano 2”. Imagine a developer calling his pet housing project
Manchester 2 and you get a sense of Signor Berlusconi’s limitless
self-belief. 
This was never just a property investment. By buying in Milano 2
Italians were buying into the Berlusconi vision of the Italian Dream:
glamorous, Americanised, expensive and artificial. 
With time, the citizens of Milano 2 could not only live in houses
created by Silvio but they could also watch Berlusconi TV stations,
read his magazines, bank at his bank, shop at his supermarket, buy the
books and magazines published by his company and cheer on the football
team he owned, the mighty AC Milan. Finally, when the magnate went
into politics, they could vote for him. A word was invented to
describe this way of life: Berlusconismo. 
But there was another, less shiny, side to Milano 2. When the young
Signor Berlusconi announced his plan to build a smart housing estate
in a muddy field it was pointed out that the planes from the airport
flew directly overhead. Mysteriously the flight paths were diverted
and the price of Milano 2 apartments leapt. It was never clear exactly
where the cash for the project had come from; the rumours of dirty
money and Mafia involvement were never proven but never went away. In
the fragrant, forsythia-lined paths of Milano 2, there was something
distinctly fishy. 
Today, after five years in power, the longest term of any postwar
Italian prime minister, Signor Berlusconi is fighting for his
political life. Voting begins tomorrow and ends on Monday. The last
opinion polls showed his coalition trailing the Centre Left, led by
Romano Prodi, the former European Commission President, by up to five
percentage points. 
For the first time in his political career the man who glories in the
nickname Il Cavaliere, the knight, seems rattled, his attempts to gain
a last-minute advantage increasingly desperate. Big business has
turned against him. His allies on the Right are starting to distance
themselves and shares in Mediaset, the broadcasting company he
controls, have started to suffer as investors anticipate his defeat. 
If Il Cavaliere is unseated it could mark the end of one of Italy’s
most extraordinary political careers. Signor Berlusconi strode the
stage in operatic style. Brash and brilliant, like all great
entrepreneurs (and some of the most successful politicians) he had no
time for convention. If the rules stood in the way he went around
them; he said exactly what came into his head (which was often
unprintable); he rewarded friends and savaged enemies. 
But after years of legal investigations, economic stagnation,
offensive gaffes and unfulfilled promises, many Italian voters have
had enough. Milano 2 remains Berlusconi bedrock but even here there is
disillusionment. “I will vote for him again, of course,” said
Alessandra Menotti, pushing her three-year-old son around a pond. “But
I’m disappointed. He has not delivered what he promised, yet.” 
Before Milano 2 Signor Berlusconi, a former cruise ship crooner and
vacuum cleaner salesman, was just another businessman of modest means
looking for a break. The exclusive package offered to residents of
Milano 2 included a dedicated cable TV channel; this became the kernel
of a strategy to break the monopoly of the state broadcaster, RAI. By
the 1980s Signor Berlusconi had become a pioneer of commercial
television, churning out soap operas and game shows with barely clad
female hosts. Critics disdained his output as “pap” but the money
poured in. 
Today Signor Berlusconi is worth at least $12billion, making him the
wealthiest man in Italy and the 37th richest in the world. Mediaset
controls 63 per cent of the advertising market. His publishing
company, Mondadori, produces more titles than any other in Italy. His
brother controls one daily newspaper, his wife another. 
The burgeoning Berlusconi empire relied heavily on the Socialist Prime
Minister, Bettino Craxi, so when a bribery scandal in 1993 brought yet
another government down and Signor Craxi fled to avoid prosecution,
the tycoon set up his own political party, a new wholly owned
subsidiary of Berlusconismo. 
Forza Italia (a name derived from a football chant) was a triumph of
marketing, reflecting his uncanny grasp of popular culture. In March
1994 he became Prime Minister despite the conflict of interest between
his roles as national leader and media magnate. Seven months later he
was out of office again, and under investigation for corruption, but
in 2001 he was triumphantly returned to power promising “a new Italian
miracle”. The Berlusconi political brand was unstoppable. So, it
seemed, were the lawsuits. He has been the subject of more than 90
investigations; most recently prosecutors called for his indictment
for allegedly bribing David Mills, the husband of Tessa Jowell, the
Culture Minister, to give favourable testimony in a case. 
Other charges included money laundering, tax evasion and bribery. He
was acquitted of some charges and the statute of limitations expired
on others; convictions were overturned on appeal; charges of false
accounting had to be dropped after they were decriminalised by his
Government. Signor Berlusconi insisted that he was the victim of a
vast left-wing judicial conspiracy. 
His arrogance was towering and theatrical. He compared himself,
variously, to Churchill, Napoleon and Jesus Christ. “It’s not a
superiority complex”, he once said. “It’s an objective fact. No one is
as valuable as Berlusconi.” 
He defied anything that stood in the way of his plans and his image —
including age: when his face started to sag and his hair receded he
got a facelift and hair transplants. 
Few politicians could give offence with the same brio as Signor
Berlusconi: he compared a German MEP to a concentration camp guard,
made the sign of the cuckold over a Spanish minister, and most
recently accused Chinese Communists of boiling babies to make
fertiliser. Last week, he described anyone who planned to vote for
Signor Prodi as coglioni, a vulgarity best translated as “dickheads”
To Anglo-Saxon eyes the posturing and crudity were entertaining, if
faintly embarrassing. On holiday with Signor Berlusconi (then sporting
a bandana after his hair transplant), Tony Blair eyed his host with
wary amusement, as one might a capricious uncle likely to whip his
trousers off at any moment and break into ribald song. 
Italy loved Signor Berlusconi, at least initially. His charm and
chutzpah enlivened the dreary greyness of Italian politics. 
By sheer force of personality he kept a fissile coalition intact and
above all he stayed put for longer than any leader since Mussolini, in
a country exhausted by 59 postwar governments. Italy might have gone
on loving Signor Berlusconi, had he spent less time on his lawsuits
and businesses and more on fulfilling his promises to rebuild the
economy. In the past five years the economy has crumbled, the deficit
has spiralled. The cost of living continues to climb and growth last
year stalled at precisely zero. Signor Berlusconi came to power
promising free-market reform and deregulation: little has
materialised. 
“He is one of us, a man of the people,” a Forza Italia spokesman,
Antonio Palmieri, insisted. It did not seem that way to many Italians,
feeling themselves grow poorer as their Prime Minister lived like a
modern Renaissance prince, jetting from one of his 14 houses to
another. 
Guests at his private estate in Sardinia, where he maintains the
largest collection of rare cacti in the world, may find themselves
being serenaded by the Prime Minister himself, with a song of his own
composition such as My Heart is in My Throat: “I know you may make me
suffer; But I’ll never let you go; Even if I have to fight I will love
you to the very end.” 
Even today, facing defeat at the hands of his old rival, Signor
Berlusconi insists that his private polls show him ahead in the race.
Given his record it would be foolish to write him off but the
self-styled “Jesus Christ of politics” needs a miracle now. 
At the final rallies of his campaign Signor Berlusconi seemed tired
and, despite the miracle of plastic surgery, closer to his age of 69.
He has fought a relentlessly negative campaign, painting Signor Prodi
as the mouthpiece of hardline Communists. “Are we selling fear now?
Yes, because the Left makes people scared.” 
His last press conference before polling day was a bitter rant against
his enemies in which he acknowledged the possibility of defeat for the
first time. There is an unusual whiff of fear in the camp of Il
Cavaliere. You can see it in his hardened smile, in his attacks on
fellow industrialists and his explosive reaction to hard questioning.
His heart is in his throat and, in the words of his own glutinous love
song, he knows he may soon be made to suffer, however hard he fights. 
Milano 2, where it all began, is still a charming spot, where birdsong
mingles with the trill of mobile telephones. 
But look more closely at the city that Silvio built 40 years ago with
mysterious money: some shops are for sale; scaffolding is up and
workmen are cementing over the cracks because the façade is slipping. 
Part of the Berlusconi dream is starting to crumble.
 
 

 ...
Tra l'altro se interessa la stampa internazionale le critiche verso
Berlusconi sono molto più serie e pesanti delle opinioni di quel
giornalista del Times.