Silvio Berlusconi, billionaire entrepreneur, four times prime minister of Italy and sometime cruise ship crooner, who has died at 86, pioneered a style of performance politics that provided a template for Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.
He rode to power in 1994 by using television in novel ways. He could afford to, because he owned most commercial outlets, led by his Mediaset empire. He used the national football slogan ‘Forza Italia’ to forge a party which treated voters like the fandom of AC Milan, which he owned for more than 30 years.
The party name changed, then back again, so Forza Italia was a partner in Giorgia Meloni’s coalition government the day he died.
Like many of his imitators, he was a rule breaker and disrupter, and sailed close to the winds of legality. He made his first fortune in construction, in developing the Milano Due suburb in the Seventies. His associates were accused, and a few convicted, of Mafia association. In 2013 his own conviction for tax fraud led to suspension from the Italian parliament for six years.
He worshipped Margaret Thatcher, once telling David Sells of the BBC that he kept her photograph by his bedside. His successful business background — he died as the third richest man in Italy — plus his attachment to Thatcher and Ronald Reagan shaped his policies around pro-business and low taxes.
It never quite worked out, the public debt continued to rise and business never quite managed to soar.
Above all he was an entertainer, always ready with a gag and a quip — the bluer the better. Life was a glitzy chat show, the standard fare of his TV stations. He liked girls, inviting them to ‘bunga bunga’ parties at his villas, sort of soft porn orgies.
He had an unusual capacity for friendships — Vladimir Putin has mourned him as “a true friend.” He paid Muammar Gaddafi €8 billion to stop migrants taking ship from Libya to Italy.
“Italians like Berlusconi,” an old colleague on Corriere della Sera explained on his political rise, because he’s the guy next door who’s made it. And if he can do it, perhaps I can too.”
Silvio Berlusconi crashed the clown car into politics, which he made a branch of showbiz. But under it all, he could be surprisingly shrewd.
