Nicholas Farrell

Nicholas Farrell

Nicholas Farrell is the author of Mussolini: A New Life (Weidenfield & Nicolson/Orion Phoenix)

Thursday

Nicholas Farrell

Beppe Grillo: Italy’s new Mussolini

The stand-up comedian Beppe Grillo, like the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini before him, has a craving to take over the piazza and mesmerise the crowd. Where once young Italians chanted the mantra ‘Du-ce! Du-ce!’ now they chant  ‘Bep-pe! Bep-pe!’. But it is not just a shared need to rant and rave at large numbers of complete strangers that hirsute Beppe and bald Benito have in common. Worryingly, for Italy and also for Europe (where democracy seems incapable of solving the existential crisis), there is a lot more to it than that. Beppe Grillo founded the MoVimento 5 Stelle (M5S) in Milan on 4 October 2009. The capital ‘V’ stands for his signature slogan ‘Vaffa!’ which roughly speaking means ‘Fuck off!

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Berlusconi bounces back

As I for one predicted, the defenestration of Silvio Berlusconi last November in a palace coup orchestrated by Europe’s bores has made no difference. Italy may well be governed by a dour former economics professor, Eurocrat and international adviser to Goldman Sachs, Mario Monti, but Italy is still in a total mess. So I greeted the news that Silvio il Magnifico, as I call him, will stand for the fourth time as Premier in the next general election by trying to high-five my Italian wife Carla in the kitchen. ‘Dammi un cinque!’ I shouted. Bravo Silvio! Che uomo! Yes, Il Cavaliere (the Knight) is a bit long in the tooth.

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Ship of fools

Ah, those Italians. Let’s just blame the bloody Eyeties for the catastrophe of the Costa Concordia and have done with it, shall we? That way we don’t have to think too much about the perils of floating citadels in general. There was something peculiarly Italian about this disaster. The night his ship went down Francesco Schettino, the 52-year-old captain, was in the bar with a striking blonde on his arm who was not his wife.

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Arrivederci il Magnifico

Berlusconi is the only person who could have sorted out Italy’s problems Where the monstrous regiment of judges, journalists and the other toxic derivatives of Italian communism failed, the Germans and the French, armed this time only with the euro, have triumphed. Silvio Berlusconi, or ‘Silvio il Magnifico’ as I am still not ashamed to call him, the 75-year-old media tycoon who has dominated politics in Italy since 1994, has lost his majority and has promised to resign as Prime Minister, and not to stand again. First the Germans and their French ‘caniche toy’ did for the Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, riding roughshod over the Greek people.

Saturday

Nicholas Farrell

Diary – 13 September 2003

Last week The Spectator interviewed Silvio Berlusconi, and there followed a political furore that dominated the Italian news for – well, at least a couple of days. The cause of the crisis was the opinion of Italy's 57th Italian post-war prime minister on the subject of judges. This is a field in which he is expert, as a result of 500 raids in the past decade by the Guardie di Finanza on the various tendrils of his media empire. Il Cavaliere – as he is nicknamed – told us that Italian judges are 'antropologicamente diversi' from the rest of us for two reasons: (1) they are left-wing; and (2) they are mad anyway. All hell broke loose. Even I became newsworthy.