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So. Farewell then, Silvio Berlusconi. The tone of _Private Eye_’s obituarist and poet in residence seems somehow appropriate for a man who never seemed to take either politics or himself

entirely seriously. Abroad, this most colourful of post-war Italian politicians will be remembered less for his impact on Europe than for his “Bunga Bunga parties” and other playboy

extravagances. He was a media magnate who never ceased to provide copy for the tabloids, whether incessant speculation about possible Mafia connections, “thousands” of courtroom appearances,

or his constant, hitherto seemingly irresistible comebacks. In the end, only the frailties of old age seem to have persuaded Berlusconi to bring down the curtain on his own political

career. At 85, he still hoped to enjoy one final act, with a bid for the biggest job of all: head of state. He might even have got away with it, had not a lifetime of overindulgence finally

caught up with him. A heart condition serious enough to require hospitalisation is the official reason, though doubtless not the only one, for the former crooner who liked to be known as _il

Cavaliere_ to take his last bow. Yet Berlusconi’s career has changed the world more than most of his rivals on the world stage. Long before Donald Trump, he was the godfather of populism.

Unlike Trump, who was just a media personality, Berlusconi actually owned the media. At the height of his power, he was estimated to enjoy, directly or indirectly, control over 90 per cent

of the Italian press and broadcasting. Whereas Trump was just one of many New York real estate billionaires, Berlusconi was the richest man in Italy. And he used his wealth and control of

the media ruthlessly to dominate politics for a generation. Berlusconi was the original, Trump merely the imitation. Though he held office for less than a decade, that was enough to make him

the longest serving Prime Minister in post-war Italy. Indeed, over the century and a half since the unification of the Risorgimento era, the only men to have led Italy for longer were the

liberal Giovanni Giolitti and the fascist Benito Mussolini. Berlusconi was so often compared to the latter that he developed a soft spot for the Duce — though he did not approve of the

fascists’ anti-Semitic laws. In 2003, the then Prime Minister told the _Spectator_’s Nicholas Farrell and the magazine’s then editor that Mussolini was not a bad leader: he never had his

opponents killed, but merely sent them “on holiday”. That editor was a certain Boris Johnson. Was Berlusconi a role model for the man who became Britain’s Prime Minister 16 years later? To

ask the question is to realise how absurd the comparison really is. Were Johnson to have been accused of any one of the myriad crimes and scandals in which Berlusconi has been embroiled, his

career would never even have got off the ground. In spite of the overblown rhetoric of their accusers, Boris is no more a populist than Silvio is a fascist. Just as Britain has genuine

populists, such as Nigel Farage, so Italy has had genuine neo-fascists, such as the postwar Italian Social Movement (MSI) and its later offshoot, the National Alliance (AN) of Gianfranco

Fini. Yet although Berlusconi’s own party, Forza Italia, has sometimes been in coalition with Fini, this was only after Fini had distanced himself from Mussolini’s legacy. What is

undeniable, however, is that Berlusconi has contributed to the return of authoritarian politics in Italy. The fact that he has exercised a control over his national media of which even

Rupert Murdoch could only dream has undoubtedly made it easier for far-Right parties, such as the Brothers of Italy, to gain a sizeable parliamentary foothold. That power has also enabled

Berlusconi to keep the judges at bay whom he has accused of defying democracy in their pursuit of him. The _Spectator_ interview took place at Berlusconi’s villa in Sardinia, where the

notorious Bunga Bunga parties took place that eventually contributed to his downfall. Over the past seven years he has been embroiled in a series of trials for bribing underage girls to keep

quiet about what happened at these parties. Together with his conviction for tax fraud in 2013, Berlusconi’s legal travails had kept him out of public office for several years until just

before the pandemic. What, if anything, did Berlusconi achieve? The fact that he had never held public office until he burst onto the political scene in the mid-1990s was one of the main

reasons for his popularity in a country where most voters assumed that all politicians were corrupt. Berlusconi was so rich and so powerful that he was presumed by many to be impossible to

bribe, and consequently worthy of their trust. Unfortunately the experiment, repeated many times since, has never proved the correctness of this presumption. Tycoons, it seems, are no less

dishonest than the rest, merely more munificent. At the European level, Berlusconi was often treated as a buffoon, particularly by the more sober-sided northern leaders such as Angela

Merkel. On one occasion, he was recorded telling a newspaper editor that the German Chancellor was “an unfuckable lard-arse”. It was left to Jeremy Paxman in 2014 to ask the now ex-Prime

Minister whether he had used these words. The footage, which can be viewed here, is priceless. After a long silence, in which Berlusconi gesticulates to feign shock at such language, he

replies that “in 20 years in politics I have never insulted anyone.” Perhaps this exchange should be the Cavaliere’s epitaph. Having transformed Italian politics from a sinister harlequinade

into an absurdist opera buffa, Berlusconi can claim at least to have modernised its style and idiom. His debauchery may have lowered the tone of public life in the Eternal City; unlike the

Church, however, he never claimed to be holier than thou. In 2011 Pope Benedict XVI told the Prime Minister, then mired in scandal, to rediscover his spiritual and moral foundations.

Berlusconi prefers Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis, who is less intellectual and more worldly. He once remarked that Francis “acts as Pope in exactly the way I would”. Some have even

joked that if the Quirinale, the Presidential palace in Rome, were to elude him, Berlusconi would set his sights on the Vatican. Despite the ongoing court cases, at least he will avoid

ending his days behind bars. At the climax of Puccini’s opera “Tosca”, the eponymous heroine throws herself to her death from the parapet of the Castel Sant’ Angelo, the papal prison, to

evade capture. Silvio Berlusconi has no need of such desperate measures. Convicted of tax evasion, he benefited from a law he had passed while in office: those over 70 cannot be sent to

prison. Handed down a four year sentence, he spent just one of them doing community service in a care home. Silvio the silver fox has always had the last laugh. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We

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