Berlusconi is now putting together his cabinet, which he promises will be one of the smallest ever, and says he is primed to make good on his election promises which include the abolition of the hated real estate tax known as ICI, the resolution of the ongoing 15-year old garbage emergency in Naples which he claims he will be able to set right in only a couple of months, and finding a way to keep the Italian national airline, Alitalia, in Italian hands and, one assumes, solvent. He has also sworn to immediately address the worsening economic situation in which Italian salaries (which according to OECD are more or less the lowest in Europe) are not keeping up with spiralling food prices. But it is not clear exactly how he intends to go about this.

         In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that were I an Italian citizen I would not have voted for Berlusconi: his 1950's style anti-communism is ridiculous. His ongoing campagn against Italian magistrates is disturbing. And to add to that, I find him vulgar, obnoxious, overbearing and incredibly conceited. Having said that, I also think he is incredibly intelligent and, at 71, amazingly dynamic. And whereas it is almost certainly true that he cut corners and no doubt exploited a series of more or less ambiguous friendships to found the fortune which made his entry into politics possible, I am made uncomfortable by people who profess to have the information to prove that he is a criminal or a Mafioso (or both) and think he is probably at best an unscrupulous man in a country where unscrupulous is not at all unusual. Furthermore, as far as his ownership of three TV channels and several newspapers goes, he certainly cannot be blamed for the fact that in Italy, the overwhelming majority of people do not know what a conflict of interest is, nor do they care.

         Berlusconi lost to Prodi after his first full five-year term (2001-2006) because despite his absurd claims to have fulfilled 85% of his then campaign promises, he did not do enough to change and improve the country and because he turned too many people off by spending far too much time having his government pass legislation that helped him resolve his own legal problems. But it may be that this time things are different. My impression is that Berlusconi is not, as many believe, back in politics to make more money. Frankly, he doesn't need it. I think, largely because of its enormous egocentrism, he honestly wants to go down in history as a man who made a difference to his country and will dedicate his efforts to doing that. In recent weeks, for example, he has totally changed his tune, telling Italians there are tough - and unpopular - decisions to be made and that he will make them. He says he has learned how to set priorities and will waste no time getting to the first of these. Well, we shall see. The proof, as we know, is in the budino.