Margaret Thatcher a great piece of pussy?

Vulgar Berlusconi pays tribute to the sex appeal of the Iron Lady
By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 05 July 2007

Margaret Thatcher was una bella gnocca, a "great piece of pussy", Silvio Berlusconi declared this week, eulogising his ideological heroine as he lashed out at Romano Prodi's government. The Italian media mogul has never shied away from the language of the public bar, but his choice of words to praise the former British prime minister was startling even by his standards. President François Mitterrand famously remarked of Baroness Thatcher that she had "the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe". Evidently Mr Berlusconi's attention was focused elsewhere.

Gnocca, pronounced "nyokka", is a vulgar term meaning "vulva" and is the standard word used by construction workers, white-van drivers and long-serving Italian prime ministers for any attractive woman who crosses their path. "The typology is composed of elements of the female sex with a high degree of attractiveness," deconstructs one faintly priapic, cod-academic Italian website. "The fundamental characteristic of the gnocca is to grab from common mortals whatever she needs to satisfy her desires." A definition that many former Tory cabinet ministers would probably go along with.

Mr Berlusconi made the remark as lecturer in politics to students of a political finishing school run by an ally in Milan. In the same freewheeling, off-the-cuff survey of the political world, he explained his poor performance in the debates with Mr Prodi before last year's general election, saying: "I only had two-and-a-half minutes in which to respond to the questions of the journalists and the stronzate - the shitty stuff - that Prodi had said."

The former prime minister's opponents were quick to pounce on his vulgarisms, one of them declaring "this public and gratuitous insult explains clearly who it is who is debasing the political debate in Italy".

But Mr Berlusconi is never as artless as he appears, and his soundest political intuition - one might say the foundation of his career - is that no political leader ever went broke underestimating the taste of the Italian electorate.

After spraying around insults and vulgarities on Monday, and garnering the usual bouquet of headlines, he was straight back on the offensive yesterday, telling a new satellite channel run by another far-right pin-up, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, that "some members of the Senate, who in the past have held high positions in the government, are on the point of saying basta [enough] to this government". Pressed by journalists to name names, he backed away. "That's up to you to find out," he said. "I'm not alluding to anyone. These are things that cannot be spoken."

Mr Berlusconi, 70, has barged back into the spotlight because he is an old man in a hurry and this may be his last chance. The Prodi government has looked shaky since it came to power in the spring of 2006, and it has not improved with age. Yesterday's front-page story in Corriere della Sera, referring to the Italian equivalent of 10 Downing Street, was headlined "Palazzo Chigi's horrible day" after the government was defeated in the Senate on an amendment to a finance bill.

With his centrist Justice Minister Clemente Mastella once again talking of resigning, and the government's Communist allies threatening to scupper his vital pensions reform, Mr Prodi is in grave trouble. "The government could last two years, or it could fall in two weeks," one leading analyst said. "Berlusconi knows that if he can force an election in the next year, he could win again. It's his last chance."