Pensionable age already is our little roundup of your nominations of the interesting and must see posts of the week. You can make your nominations for next week by emailing them to britblog AT gmail DOT com. Something odd out…

I did want to qualify ‘Craxi’s socialists’ with some kind of ‘who were socialist in the sense that gathering as much of the social product as you can to yourself is socialist’ claim, but couldn’t think of a decent one.

Oh, and do you know of a site where all the Italian results are laid out neatly, region by region in detail, Senate and Camera, perhaps with some Peter Snow graphics to boot? Haven’t had much luck finding a source that I can make head or tail of.

Donald – yes, the occupation of Rai3 was the great achievement of the Communist semi-rapprochement with the Christian Democrats in the 1970s. Ironic, really, as it gave Berlusconi a stick to beat them with… across the other five channels. (The man’s not short of brass neck, you’ve got to give him that.)

Jonn – the overseas vote was crucial, particularly in the Senate (an Italian government has to have a majority in both houses of parliament). The six overseas senators divided 4-1-1 for the Left, the Right and one guy in South America who says he’ll vote for whatever everyone else wants except when South American business comes up; apparently he’s an ex-member of Forza Italia, so the Right were a bit peeved not to be able to rely on his vote. I think the numbers are close enough that a 3-3 split would have destroyed the Left’s majority, or at least left them relying on the independent senators-for-life. (Didn’t mention them, did I? There’s a fractal quality about Italian politics – the closer you look the more complicated it gets…)

Wasn’t Berlusconi one of Craxi’s proteges, and doesn’t most of his money originally come from Milan Due, the housing development on the outskirts of Milan, built slap bang in the middle of Tangentopoli? I ask because that might cast doubt on the extent to which Forza is a descendant of the Christian Democrats rather than Craxi’s socialists, at least at an elite level. The whole thing is this amoralistic Weberian mess.

Which reminds me: whenever I’m in Italy with my partner’s dad (a Piemontese), he still refers to Rai 3 as the “Communist channel” because that’s how it was divvied up during the DC regime. I believe the socialists had one channel and the DC had one, too – hence 3 Rai channels?

And I heard Bossi speak once, at a fundraising rally in northern Liguria about ten years ago. Even though I didn’t understand much of what he said (he was speaking partly in dialect, and doing a lot of shouting), it was enough to be scared.