Here I am again in Italy trying hard to fathom out how the Italian legislature actually functions! We are now 5 days into a confusing political crisis that Italians themselves have great difficulty fathoming out. Gianfranco Fini, a towering figure in Italian politics, labeled years ago as a neo-conservative far right winger, and President (Speaker) of the Chamber of Deputies, appeared to have resigned from the coalition led by his old ally the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. His position within the governing People of Freedom (PdL) movement is hard to fathom out. On Friday, 33 of Mr Fini’s clan in the Chamber broke with the PdL to form a new parliamentary grouping. This leaves Berlusconi’s government without a majority in the equivalent of our Commons. The government is now at least seven seats short of a majority. But is this just posturing to threaten Berlusconi? Neither the rebels nor Mr Fini resigned from the ‘movement’ (the PdL isn’t ever referred to as a party although it clearly is) that Fini founded with Berlusconi. Fini and his supporters have declared they will only vote against government legislation it doesn’t follow the electoral manifesto. As Speaker Fini does not vote but curiously retains the PdL whip.
Fini’s astute manoeuvre (or I think it is) puts him in a position to damage Berlusconi his former ally but it leaves Italian politics in a less stable situation than ever. Berlusconi had been trying to oust Fini for months, particularly as Fini seems to have been moving towards the centre and away from his almost fascist position. It’s a bit like watching the humanization of Michael Portillo after the 1987 election; I was glad but not sure if it was believable. Fini wants Berlusconi to deal with his allies’ alleged corruption and introduce more democratic systems into the PdL. Fat chance I say….
There is a great new book about the real Berlusconi by Charles Young, called ‘Impunity’; I recommend it to anyone who worries about the petty corruptions of UK political life. Young’s book is a searing indictment of the Italian electorate’s failure to remove a profoundly damaged politician who has presided over the worst economic decline in Italy’s history since the war.
Fini managed to weaken a ‘bavaglio’ law ie a gagging law, dear to the prime minister’s heart, that would have stopped the publication of eavesdropped transcripts, which in the past have been damaging to Berlusconi. By most estimates the government is now at least seven seats short of a majority.
The current situation probably won’t last. Berlusconi should be able to secure the backing of smaller parties of whom there are dozens, by offering jobs and inducements in the time honoured fashion.
The decision as to when to call an election lies in the hands of the Head of State President Giorgio Napolitano, but at the weekend, Berlusconi and his other ally, Umberto Bossi of the separatist Northern League, (Lega Nord) were working hard to rule that out.
But the sun is shining here in Tuscany; Italians retains on the surface a wonderful way of life. Look closely and you see that young people have no jobs, the price of food seems increasingly high, restaurants are not full and times are tough. Berlusconi is a terrible failure and though he has passed some austerity measures I know no-one who believes he can implement them. How can a man with so many accusations of tax evasion ever convince a nation to pay their dues?
I think there is a much more vital and insidiously-threatening political matter here, indeed a deeper constitutional and educational Matter, than the mere “petty corruptions of UK political life” that the Baroness makes a played-down point about.
The telling bit is the data showing our modern democratic nation-states to have proliferously-conflicting needs, hows and affordable-costs, that are nonetheless easily sacrificed to degrading- compromise by any powerful party which “should be able to secure the backing of smaller parties of whom there are dozens”.
Why so many conflicting parties, and career-sector ‘essential-budgets’ (for daily individual living costs not for Business and National-Organisation Costs) when the primary and dominant Need, How, and Affordable-Cost of one-human-being is exactly equal to the Need, How, and Affordable-Cost of every other individual human-being on Earth, of whom there are more than six billion, including highly self-paid and aggrandising Military Juntas, Monarchies, Aristocracies, neo-aristocracies, nouveau-riches, and over-plumped-up middle-classes ?
I’d readily wager that in less than 168 hours a network of small-groups of British secondary-school year 12 students could come up with a Table of Individual Human Needs better than any political-manifesto so far swung across on the Public.
That every government in the World is as pretentious , avoidant of the longterm primary sustainworthines Need of every civilisation on Earth today (eleven in total in 1990 I believe); and is dependent upon extravagance, inefficiency, corruption, overpopulation, and mass-ill-health alongside under-education, as are Italy and the UK which the baroness holds up here as topical-foci; shows what is needed not just by Democracy but by Communities under any system of government; and shows that Baroness Murphy and Charles Young alike are totally wrong in blaming “the Electorate” for not removing “a profoundly damaged politician”.
What is so clearly needed is Win-Win-Win Citizenship, democratic-governance, and international problem-solving.
Almost “by definition” it is all politicians who are corrupt and failing; not the so-called democratically-empowered sovereign-electorate who, in fact having insufficient participatorily-cooperative and Win-Win-Win problem-solving ability, can never attain any effective level of democratic-governance responsibility. nor response-ability, nor “power”.
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(JSDM2111T03Aug2010).
Nice piece of political blogging if I may say so and you raise some interesting issues. Firstly on manifestos, they are not legally binding. One of the frustrations for party members is that an executive can renege on a commitment made in its manifesto.
However, in the case of a coalition the best that one can hope for is that some parts of the manifesto remain in the eventual coalition agreement. The art of politics here is to ensure that manifestos are centre based so that agreement is possible. A HoL elected by party members would have a mandate to oppose changes to coalition agreements or manifestos when no coalition was necessary.
On the subject of restaurants not being full The French reduced VAT to encourage trade. Could we or should we do the same? On the price of food I believe India is the worst place for this at the moment with price inflation running at 20% per annum.
On tax evasion: it is after all a civil liberty constrained by law even though Baroness Deech feels it ignoble in any respect to avoid paying tax. Berlusconi is a very successful business man with a blagger’s charm. He can afford to pay somebody to find tax loopholes but the ‘cash cows’ trapped as servants in a master servant relationship see reality only through the bars of their taxation prison. What’s that? Moo-t point!
As to austerity measures; the Japanese have tried over a very long time to reduce their deficit but have not made much headway. This intrigues me, is it a failing of popular democracy and its bribery or have there been other factors at work? Or is it that coalitions make it impossible to agree such tough measures?
The ‘bavaglio’ gag law you mention reminds me of the recent changes in UK divorce law that prevent rich estranged wives from using secretly obtained documents in court to prove their husbands are hiding assets. Is the Italian Parliament going to divorce Berlusconi qualche giorno di sole?
Thank you for this, baroness. Always interesting to hear about the sad situation in Italy.
I read recently (think it was a syndicated column by Gwynne Dyer) that Berlusconi has started blaming Italy’s woes on immigrants, despite immigrants making up less than 1% of the population. Is that included in the book, or am I typing utter tripe?
I have never tried to understand Italian politics, except that historically there seems to have been chronic fascist/communist extremism.
Even less Have I tried to understand Berlusconie except to observe that whilstthe UK elections are generally decided by The Rupert Murdoch family, Italian ones are decided by the Berlusconi one which also has the same role as Murdoch, in UK.
General elections have always been claimed as victories for press baron choice; Berlusconi
rules.
Such corruption, even if it were integrity, is a heavy responsibility. Either way the role is a heavy responsibility, and an unenviable one.
“Berlusconi is a terrible failure and though he has passed some austerity measures I know no-one who believes he can implement them.”
Well objectively Italy’s deficit is actually pretty good compared to many other European countries (~5%) – it’s the debt that’s awful. But the main cause of the problem is not Berlusconi but Italy’s entry into the EMU at an exchange rate that was wrong and with industrial practices and restrictions that made them uncompetitive. They are now unable to devalue which would help or adjust other economic mechanisms that they have surrendered to the EU. Replacing B would not alter this.
PS my spell checker wants to change ‘Berlusconi’ to ‘wanderlust’ 🙂
Some very pertinent points have been made. JSDM, I ought to point out that Charles Young does not blame the electorate of Italy, but I do rather blame the culture that has allowed Berlusconi to flourish. Your idealism is praiseworthy but cynically I would say you’re in cloud cuckoo land.
Senex, Some good points but the extent of tax evasion in Italy is widespread and built into the daily system of business and ordinary commerce. It is quite difficult to avoid it. Everyone wants to be paid in cash, no-one uses bank accounts, the usual scams operate in a way which is almost impossible to contemplate in the UK. (Yes I know there’s a black economy in the UK but its nothing like here).
Liam there is a good deal of blame being heaped on the illegal immigrants from Albania, other eastern Europe countries and Africa although they are not very visible and where they are it’s usually in the service and construction industries where of course they work for a cash amount unacceptable to Italians. I don’t think Young mentions them in his book.
Gareth Howell, yes, the control of the papers and TV by Berlusconi’s group Mediaset is a malign influence. It also explains why the internet is so bad here and why Sky has had such a problem in getting established. The web is not controlled by Berlusconi and has been subject to laws to make it difficult for the internet to flourish so as not to diminish the influence of his TV empire.
Croft, you are as usual wholly right but the real problem in Italy is economic stagnation. One might have expected that Berlusconi’s right wing group would have concentrated on reversing that but they have been singularly unsuccessful, rather like the Heath government in the early 70s. What is missing in Italy is visionary, moral and determined leadership, I look around and at present in Italian politics I cannot see any alternatives who might have what it takes.
Baroness Murphy, in your opening Post you specificly said
“Young’s book is a searing indictment of the Italian electorate’s failure to remove a profoundly damaged politician” (Lord Norton likes to say “No names no pack drill”); and you had introduced it , “a great new book about the real (politician) by Charles Young…I recommend it (to anyone who worries about the petty corruptions of UK political life”.
You begin your authoritarian Reply to commenters with
“JSDM, I ought to point out that Charles Young does not blame the electorate of Italy” when in fact he had been doing something much more condemnatory, from your own mindset he had been searingly indicting the Italian electorate for its “failure to remove a profoundly damaged politician”.
You go on using a forked-tongue to add insult to injury, by cynically labelling me a praiseworthy idealist dwelling delusorily in “cloud cuckoo land”.
It is tragic that there is no one in Britain, including your own self, both capable and legally-empowered to publicly isolate such errors by ‘privileged’ political-advocates, that smack of malfeasance as well as of personal-incompetence, and take their perpetrators and causative-instigators (namely the British Constitution and the whole Parliamentary Legislature) to task.
Under such totally avoidant-governance, and unwarranted top-down attack upon a disadvantaged and impaired but seriously-constructive British citizen, I must recommend some essential reading be completed by actually doing the exercises given not just reading about them “which is no good at all”*:
1 “Leadership Effectiveness Training” by Thomas Gordon, specificly the friendly Method III of Needs, Hows, and Affordable-Costs identification using a participatorily-cooperative Win-Win-Win process: a detailed five-step worksheet for which has already been given under Baroness D’Souza’s post “Lunch at the Supreme Court” 25/07/2010.
2. “Every-One Can Win” by Cornelius & Faire, specificly the list of eight “Fouls” attached to the “Fighting Fair” five steps for participatorily-cooperativ Conflict Resolution: (1)Be willing to fix the problem (2) Say what the problem is for you (3) Listen to what theproblem is for them (4) Attack the Problem not the Person (5) Look for Answers so every one gets what they need.
3. “Inductive and Practical Reasoning” by Girle, Halpin, Miller & Williams, specificly ch 7 Fallacies and ch 8 Debating and Dialogue.
4 “Six Thinking Hats” by Edward de Bono, specificly the differences between the White, Black, Red and Blue “hats” (= modes of Thinking).
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* “Seeing Who You Really Are” by Richard Lang, specificly para 3 of the Foreword.
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(JSDM0223F06Aug2010).
Here is the article on Berlusconi I was referring to. It was written in June 2009 so is a little out of date, the interesting parts are the last five paragraphs.
Still if your country had a sovereign City state on its midst,dedicated to the conservation of a dead language, and making all the running for morals, and ethics, wouldn’t you feel like being immoral and corrupt to keep your job?
Come to that why don’t we try it? But I am certain that the Royal Parks and Knightsbridge would not be adequate for the task of sovereign state.
Morals and ethics? Tell me more.
Gareth Howell, You may be surprised how alive and well moral debate is in the Houses of Parliament; indeed most of the debates have an overt moral element. Parliament falls short of its own moral standards all the time, I admit, but there is no shortage of discussion on what is ‘right’, nor of people who really want to do the ‘right thing’.
But returning to the funny old Vatican, curious as it is (I suppose you mean the Vatican, not San Marino?) I doubt it has much influence these days on the largely secular Italians.