A BIG BOO...

...For Silvio Berlusconi, to speed him on his way from Italy's premiership, a position he has disgraced and abused for much of the seventeen years he has occupied it. It can be said in his defence that he put a stop to Italy's habit of changing prime ministers once or twice a year but the price that had to be paid -- of the merging of government and media, the accumulation of legal charges that now have to be faced and the personal misbehaviour which diminished Italy's reputation also -- was far too high. There are suggestions that he will find ways back into government. Heaven forbid!