Alexander Chancellor
The Guardian, Thursday 9 July 2009
Article history
Reported by the Guardian as having made such a hash of preparations for the G8 summit in L'Aquila that Italy's continued membership of that elite group of nations was now in doubt, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, dismissed the story as "a colossal blunder by a small newspaper". His foreign minister, Franco Frattini, then chipped in with a personal hope that the Guardian would be "expelled from the great newspapers of the world" - as if "great newspapers" were a club that this "small newspaper" had somehow joined under false pretences.
One wonders in any case which newspapers Frattini would admit to the club, given that most European papers (including all the Italian ones not owned by the prime minister) are as critical of Berlusconi as the Guardian has been, and that even the revered New York Times yesterday accused the Italian government of "inexcusably lax planning" for the summit. If the New York Times does not qualify as a "great" newspaper, it must be a very exclusive club indeed.
In its own leading article yesterday, the Guardian condemned the Italians as a whole for continuing to give almost 50% support to Berlusconi despite all the scandals - private and public - in which he has been involved. It said that "until Italians start demanding serious standards from their leaders, the country is perhaps not the best venue for serious world summits". This, in my opinion, is a little unfair.
It should be remembered that Berlusconi came to power in the first place on a wave of popular disgust with the corruption and incompetence of feuding coalition governments. He held out the hope not only of honest rule (his huge wealth was seen as one reason to trust in his incorruptibility) but also of a strong and united administration. And if, despite everything, he retains widespread popular support, it's because he seems to have delivered the latter; and because, on the honesty question, people have no more faith in the integrity of his accusers than they do in his.
It is true, as he himself never tires of pointing out, that most Italians do like him and admire his energy and self-confidence. They would like to go on supporting him, but that doesn't mean that they will. His "frequenting of juniors" that caused his wife to divorce him, and the escort girls that he flew in to attend his weekend parties in Sardinia, have not damaged him as much as they would, say, Gordon Brown; but they have already knocked several points off his opinion poll ratings and will knock even more if the Catholic church becomes more open in its disapproval of his behaviour. And were he to be found guilty of any sexual impropriety, of which there is admittedly no evidence so far, he would be finished. But if you're in a hurry to see the back of him, the best thing to hope for is another earthquake during the summit in L'Aquila, where there was an encouraging little earth tremor only yesterday morning.
Also in yesterday's New York Times, the columnist David Brooks lamented the absence of dignity in American life. By this he meant the lack of the reticence and dispassion that used to govern the behaviour of public figures in the US. He cited the example of Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina who, when caught having sneaked off secretly to Argentina to visit his mistress, indulged in "rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace". He also cited Sarah Palin's press conference announcing her resignation as governor of Alaska in which, as he stiltedly pointed out, she showed herself "unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust". Well, she was ghastly; that's for sure.
But what attracted me to Brooks's column was his choice of a little book by George Washington as a guide to how dignified behaviour should be. This is a list of 110 "rules of civility and decent behaviour in company and conversation" that Washington had jotted down as a 13-year-old boy in Virginia, and of which for many years I have possessed a copy. These were not Washington's original thoughts. The rules had appeared in various forms and in various languages since the end of the 16th century when they had been circulated among the Jesuits, who were then educating the children of the nobility all over continental Europe. But as a guide to good behaviour they are still remarkably appropriate.
They tell you "in the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise; nor drum with your fingers or feet"; "if you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, do it not loud, but privately"; "jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes"; "if anyone comes to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up". And they are not merely rules for polite behaviour. Many of the others are simply about modesty and reticence and treating others with decency, compassion and respect. For Washington, says Brooks, they were a "dignity code" that he took very seriously and tried to follow throughout his life. They were what gave him his moral character and made him a hero in the eyes of many. What struck me reading through them again, however, was that there is hardly a single one that Berlusconi would not break.
• This week Alexander has been busy picking raspberries and broad beans in his fruit and vegetable patch: "They all appear in a rush and are too many to eat at once, so they have to be frozen instead. This means that you spend most of your time eating frozen produce even when you grow it at home, which is rather sad."
The Guardian, Thursday 9 July 2009
Article history
Reported by the Guardian as having made such a hash of preparations for the G8 summit in L'Aquila that Italy's continued membership of that elite group of nations was now in doubt, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, dismissed the story as "a colossal blunder by a small newspaper". His foreign minister, Franco Frattini, then chipped in with a personal hope that the Guardian would be "expelled from the great newspapers of the world" - as if "great newspapers" were a club that this "small newspaper" had somehow joined under false pretences.
One wonders in any case which newspapers Frattini would admit to the club, given that most European papers (including all the Italian ones not owned by the prime minister) are as critical of Berlusconi as the Guardian has been, and that even the revered New York Times yesterday accused the Italian government of "inexcusably lax planning" for the summit. If the New York Times does not qualify as a "great" newspaper, it must be a very exclusive club indeed.
In its own leading article yesterday, the Guardian condemned the Italians as a whole for continuing to give almost 50% support to Berlusconi despite all the scandals - private and public - in which he has been involved. It said that "until Italians start demanding serious standards from their leaders, the country is perhaps not the best venue for serious world summits". This, in my opinion, is a little unfair.
It should be remembered that Berlusconi came to power in the first place on a wave of popular disgust with the corruption and incompetence of feuding coalition governments. He held out the hope not only of honest rule (his huge wealth was seen as one reason to trust in his incorruptibility) but also of a strong and united administration. And if, despite everything, he retains widespread popular support, it's because he seems to have delivered the latter; and because, on the honesty question, people have no more faith in the integrity of his accusers than they do in his.
It is true, as he himself never tires of pointing out, that most Italians do like him and admire his energy and self-confidence. They would like to go on supporting him, but that doesn't mean that they will. His "frequenting of juniors" that caused his wife to divorce him, and the escort girls that he flew in to attend his weekend parties in Sardinia, have not damaged him as much as they would, say, Gordon Brown; but they have already knocked several points off his opinion poll ratings and will knock even more if the Catholic church becomes more open in its disapproval of his behaviour. And were he to be found guilty of any sexual impropriety, of which there is admittedly no evidence so far, he would be finished. But if you're in a hurry to see the back of him, the best thing to hope for is another earthquake during the summit in L'Aquila, where there was an encouraging little earth tremor only yesterday morning.
Also in yesterday's New York Times, the columnist David Brooks lamented the absence of dignity in American life. By this he meant the lack of the reticence and dispassion that used to govern the behaviour of public figures in the US. He cited the example of Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina who, when caught having sneaked off secretly to Argentina to visit his mistress, indulged in "rambling self-exposure even in his moment of disgrace". He also cited Sarah Palin's press conference announcing her resignation as governor of Alaska in which, as he stiltedly pointed out, she showed herself "unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust". Well, she was ghastly; that's for sure.
But what attracted me to Brooks's column was his choice of a little book by George Washington as a guide to how dignified behaviour should be. This is a list of 110 "rules of civility and decent behaviour in company and conversation" that Washington had jotted down as a 13-year-old boy in Virginia, and of which for many years I have possessed a copy. These were not Washington's original thoughts. The rules had appeared in various forms and in various languages since the end of the 16th century when they had been circulated among the Jesuits, who were then educating the children of the nobility all over continental Europe. But as a guide to good behaviour they are still remarkably appropriate.
They tell you "in the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise; nor drum with your fingers or feet"; "if you cough, sneeze, sigh or yawn, do it not loud, but privately"; "jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes"; "if anyone comes to speak to you while you are sitting, stand up". And they are not merely rules for polite behaviour. Many of the others are simply about modesty and reticence and treating others with decency, compassion and respect. For Washington, says Brooks, they were a "dignity code" that he took very seriously and tried to follow throughout his life. They were what gave him his moral character and made him a hero in the eyes of many. What struck me reading through them again, however, was that there is hardly a single one that Berlusconi would not break.
• This week Alexander has been busy picking raspberries and broad beans in his fruit and vegetable patch: "They all appear in a rush and are too many to eat at once, so they have to be frozen instead. This means that you spend most of your time eating frozen produce even when you grow it at home, which is rather sad."
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