Fiddling as Rome burns

Ruby Rubacuore stared into Silvio Berlusconi's eyes - well, she said it was only his eyes - saw his soul and asked Italians to go easy on their scandal-ridden prime minister. "He is a person who suffers from solitude, who is not very happy."

It's kind of sad when you're a 74-year-old media magnate and you have to pay a teenage stripper to listen to your carping. But, insist both Karima El Mahroug and Berlusconi, while the Italian head of government gave the teenage hooker thousands of euros in cash, all they did was talk. Honestly. Like Bill Clinton didn't inhale. Even our beloved Bill never had to drop cash to obtain his kneeling confessions. There comes a time to hang up your boots, old boy.

But Mr Berlusconi, endowed with hair implants and spray-on tan, will be dragged kicking and screaming to his retirement. Apparently, enough of his compatriots are willing to let him bring their country down with him. If it were merely a long Peter Pan act, one might just dismiss it as a weakness for beautiful women (of which Italy does not lack).

Legal woes

Unfortunately for Italy, and all its friends, it's a wee bit more complicated than that. Mr Berlusconi has a long history of what one might call a vague relationship with the law. He is facing charges on bribery and tax fraud. Having sex with an underage prostitute only adds to those woes. But more worrying is that when Ms Mahroug was hauled in by the police on unrelated theft charges, the prime minister's office placed a discreet call to say they had better release her since she was the Egyptian president's granddaughter.

You rub your forehead and wonder if that's the best his staff could come up with on short notice. It wasn't that difficult to do a quick online search to find out that the girl was not, in fact, any relation of Hosni Mubarak's (much as Mr Mubarak might have wished she were, given the breathlessly close access she would have given him to the Italian government). So the Italian prime minister is now facing the greater charge of perverting justice.

Not to worry. When you own or control most of the nation's television channels - as Mr Berlusconi does, through either private channels or the state-owned ones - you do what tinpot dictators do: put sycophants before the public, and pass a law making you immune to prosecution. Which is exactly what Mr Berlusconi did.

In his defence, Mr Berlusconi insists that the investigations to which he's being subjected are vendettas by political foes who are unable to unseat him at the ballot box. It is true that Mr Berlusconi's personal popularity has not, at least so far, suffered lasting damage from the endless stream of scandals.

Law overturned

Nonetheless, in a recent ruling, Italy's highest court ruled that the immunity law violated the country's constitutional provision to give all citizens equality before the law. The gloves are off, and the prosecutors are back in the ring with their old foe.

Mr Berlusconi might finally be in serious trouble, were it not that at the moment, the left-wing opposition in Italy is inept. Having won a confidence vote in Parliament late last year with the slenderest of margins, Mr Berlusconi's government hangs by a thread. But if elections are soon called, it's not at all clear an alternative will emerge. Instead, we are likely to see weak governments and an unstable Italy.

That's bad news at a time of high volatility in government-bond markets. Speculators appear to be continually on the lookout for the next European government whose fiscal house will fall. If and when the next round of contagion begins, Italy's weak government could expose the country to speculative attack. Nobody will be able to do much about it.

Partying while all burns down around you? Mr Berlusconi won't be the first man in Rome of whom that's been said. But unlike the legend around Nero, this time it will be true.

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