The IdV – Italy’s Honest Political Party which isn’t, Maybe

Founded by ex-Italian magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, the Italian Values – Italia dei Valori (IdV) party stands for honesty and integrity.  The IdV party is also staunchly anti-corruption. Now, Di Pietro is facing allegations that he embezzled money from his party to construct a property empire – something which the Italian politician vehemently denies.  He […]

Pope and Politician Baiting

In the tumultuous world that is Italian politics, the show goes rumbling on. Di Pietro has been pointing out that the current group running the Living Museum are, in the main, relics. Or rather the products of regurgitation, and, as many can imagine, regurgitated food tends to leave a bad taste in your mouth. When […]

Di Pietro Nil, Berlusconi Won

One Italian politician has had the guts to stand up and say in no uncertain terms that Berlusconi, who promised to represert the interests of the Italian people, is making passing parliamentary time passing Berlusconi protection laws. Such laws are not really in the interests of Italy’s people, unless, that is, such people happen to […]

How to Win an Election

The person who was formerly known as the richest man in Italy, Mr Berlusconi, has been making noises about acquiring Alitalia in an attempt to save it from the dastardly marauding French. What a master stroke, right at election time too. He couldn’t have planned it better. Who knows how may votes this little stunt […]

Cheesed Off

The rubbish crisis which appears to have made Naples infamous the world over, has now been joined by a mozzarella crisis.  A Buffalo Mozzarella crisis, to be more precise. As you may have seen from stories in the press the world over, this delicious cheese, one of Italy’s more prized delicacies, has become the subject […]

Mastella Resigns, again

Only this time, Prodi decided to accept Mr Mastella’s offer. It sounds as though someone reminded Mastella that it does not look all that good for a government to have a Justice Minister who is under investigation for corruption. Then again, maybe Mr Mastella found out that the allegations against him (and many of those […]

Did you hear about ‘Vaffa’ day here in Italy?

Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian who was excommunicated from Italian TV many years ago after he made a few quips about the behaviour of certain politicians, and who runs one of the most popular blogs in the world, organised ‘Vaffa’ day. ‘Vaffa’ if you did not know, is short for ‘vaffanculo’, which means something like […]