02:00 - Music
02:04 - Silvio Berlusconi at rally
Brissenden: For Silvio Berlusconi the prime ministership of Italy is about more than just politics -- he sees himself as a leader, a benefactor and above all a patron.
02:20
Mariano : He can do everything
02:22
Mariano I call him God.
02:26 - Berlusconi
Brissenden: Silvio Berlusconis story is an Italian fable. He rose from middle class beginnings to become the countrys richest and most powerful man.
02:37:19 - Berlusconis family and friend
He has created a modern family empire, run by his son, his daughter and his oldest friends.
02:44 - Footage of President Bush
Its a power which seems to know no bounds.
02:54 - Inside editing room
As Prime Minister and media magnate, he has a stranglehold on Italys all powerful television networks, not to mention newspapers, radio and the Internet.
03:06
Ginsborg : This is the Prime Minister
03:07 - Ginsborg
who says: Im going to rid of various people who I dont like on television. Thats never been done before.
03:16 - Anti Berlusconi rally
Brissenden: And a growing number of Italians are taking to the streets to protest at this media power and his governments plans for new laws which could allow the Prime Minister to avoid trial on charges of bribery and corruption.
Colombo: Silence is the real danger, and thats why you wont be silent, and thats why we are going to keep disturbing all the people saying: Who are these people? Why is this happening?
03:48 - Music
04:04 - Monte Carlo
Brissenden: Monte Carlos hosting the annual general meeting of the Berlusconis family company, Mediaset, and its been another vintage year for the company that controls all of Italys main private TV channels.
04:20 - Black-tie event
This one of the foundation stones of the Berlusconi familys Fininvest holding company.
Fininvest dominates Italian life. It has a controlling stake in all arms of the media, in insurance, advertising and even football.
Prime Minister Berlusconis government pushed through legislation to allow him to keep Mediaset but he does have to leave the day to day running of the company to his son, Piersilvio and daughter, Marina.
04:55
But the fathers shadow is a long one. His stars and news anchors , like Emilio Fede, are also part of the family --and they never let anyone forget that he is their patron and the nations benefactor.
05:09 - Fede
Fede: He has got one defect he is unable to remember who his enemies are - and so he doesnt do anything against them. I dont think its right. He does think its right - he believes in God probably more than I do. As for me, my God lives in Arcore (Berlusconis home) - while his own one is in the sky.
05:34 - Images of Italian man daily routine
Brissenden: Italians wake up to his three private TV channels. They turn on his radio stations. They can read newspapers owned by his brother or funded by his wife. At work, they can log on to his internet service provider. After work, they can call into one of his video shops, rent a movie made by his film company and distributed by his distribution network. They can read his magazines or bestsellers published by the Berlusconis own publishing company. And herein lies the heart of his appeal. He is successful a man many Italians wish they could emulate.
06:17 - Ginsborg
Ginsborg: I think people voted many people vote Berlusconi because they liked him as an entrepreneur, because they wanted to give him a go and because they were very disillusioned with the Centre Left governments, which had governed honestly but without inspiration. And I think thats what the Centre Left had done all over Europe.
06:37 - Berlusconi at rally
He loves to be the Patron and have other people be his clients.
06:42 - Ginsborg
Super fades up Professor Paul Ginsborg Florence University
He will give other people gifts, he will put his patriarchal arm round your shoulder, he will bring you into his coterie in one way or another.
Naples Singing
06:57
Brissenden: In Naples
06:57 - Mariano Appicello and family
This family knows the embrace of the patriarchal arm.
07:01 - Mariano Appicello
Meet Mariano Appicello a former part-time singer in a Naples hotel. Prime Minister Berlusconi heard him sing there just over a year ago and adopted him, perhaps recognising a man after his own heart, after all he began his own career as a cruise ship crooner.
07:21 - Appicello
Super fades up Mariano Appicello Singer
Appicello: I sing and he likes, he was so happy, that he asked can you sing for me in a weekends time, you know. So if you like to follow me, wherever I go, I dont know in Milan or in Rome or in Sardinia and I say yes, I will have time.
Singing
07:58
Appicello: I play mostly parties, but some days I just play for him because he likes too much.
08:09 - Images from magazines
Brissenden: The two men have started writing music together 12 songs so far, for a CD due for release in Italy after Christmas. Mariano writes the tunes, Silvio the words. Theyre both romantics at heart.
08:26 - Mariano
Mariano: Silvio Berlusconi is first a clever man and then he has talent, not just in music but in, I dont know how to say in English but he is an impressadora, hes a leader. Then hes the leader of the Forza Italia in Italy -- he can do everything. [laughs] I call him God.
Singing
09:07
Brissenden: All of that might be quite endearing if he was just Italys
09:10:23 - Footage of Berlusconi
most rich and powerful businessman. But the patron is now the countrys most powerful politician as well.
09:19 - Women watching TV
His private media empire helped build his political success. Pollsters say that women who watched his stations were the most likely to vote for him. But he and his government now control the State television and State radio channels as well meaning that, in all, his government and his family company control 90 percent of Italian media. A situation unprecedented anywhere else in the world and the implications of that are starting to cause unease.
09:57 - Rome rally
This rally in Rome on a hot, late summer afternoon in the massive Piazza San Giovanni attracted at least half a million people. Young people, old people, families and celebrities, like Giuilia Fossá, a former film actress, now a journalist and a writer.
10:18 - Fossá
Fossá: We want to defend democracy and communication. We are journalists, we are cameramen, all citizens, no parties, no politics, just citizens and Italy is ours, you know.
10:32 - Rally
Brissenden: This was the latest and largest in a growing series of demonstrations which began in Florence in January.
10:47
At the heart of this rallys concern was the extent of the Prime Ministers media control. Renowned Italian journalist, Michele Santoro, personifies their fears.
11:00
Fossá: Michele Santoro is a symbol,
11:02
Fossá: but he is one, we are a lot. I used to work on the news for 20 years and I am not working at the moment.
11:09 - Rally
Brissenden: Until recently, Santoro had a satirical program on the government owned RAI network. It had been a constant critic of Berlusconi and his government. The high-rating show was axed earlier this year, apparently after a complaint from the Prime Minister.
11:26 - Santoro
Santoro: All our troubles started when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described our approach in the election campaign - mine and Enzo Biagi - as criminal conduct. So we think the reason why our programs have been cancelled is purely political.
11:53 - Music
12:05 - Man painting office
Brissenden: Now, Michele Santoro and his team wait to see what, if anything, that RAI has in store for them.
12:15 - Cine Citta
Across town, at Cine Citta, Italys Hollywood, the Berlusconi commercial television empire is in production of its latest audience grabbing show. Here they chase ratings, not with contentious local programs, but with popular foreign formats.
12:47
This is Operation Triumph the show where sixteen of Italys wannabe pop stars spend three months, here, in a music academy, being tutored and tested before being accepted or rejected for super stardom. Watched 24 hours a day by cameras a sort of Big Brother with musical passion.
13:13
Once a week, theyre allowed out to perform a concert for their families and friends and for the nation to judge their achievements.
13:24
Its a winning formula, delivering money and ratings at the expense of Italys government channels.
13:34 - Rally
Colombo: The liberty of our country is at risk. It would really be at risk, if you were not here today - if this square was not packed with people.
13:52
Brissenden: Furio Columbo is one of Silvio Berlusconis most vocal critics. Hes a former left wing MP, now a newspaper editor. Hes seen as a potential leader of the Left who could stand against Mr. Berlusconi at the next election.
14:08
Colombo: The problem is when you receive
14:10 - Colombo
signs that you find so many people increasingly are receiving silent warnings about their behaviour. If you are against Berlusconi today, and if you say that clearly, openly, how many chances do you have of finding a job if you are a journalist, if you are a newscaster, if you are the moderator of a talk show.
Super fades up Furio Colombo Editor - L'Unita
14:37 - Music
14:50 - Piersilvio Berlusconi in Monte Carlo
Brissenden: In Monte Carlo, the journalists came to listen to the Prime Ministers son, not to ask him tough questions. It was only later that the question of conflict of interest came up and was denied.
15:06 - Piersilvio
Piersilvio Berlusconi: No, no. Im really speaking honestly like a son. I dont think that since my father has left his job and went to politics, weve ever talked once about television and content and the how are the things going, are you okay?Brissenden: You dont talk politics at home? Piersilvio Berlusconi: We talked politics, but we dont talk politics and business. Plus, I mean, watch our networks. We have news on every political side.
15:46 - Colombo
Colombo: We are not so silly to believe that Mr. Berlusconi sit at the dinner table with his daughter and with his son they dont talk about their empire and about their power and the incredible overlapping of that power with the public power of the Prime Minister.
16:04 - Piersilvio
Piersilvio Berlusconi: See this is a case where you can talk about conflict of interest the other way around. If there is one it s against the development of our company. So its honestly ridiculous when you hear some comments that they would like to stop the development of Mediaset, because of politics.
16:23 - Music
16:30 - Workers club
Brissenden: The seeds for the growing discontent with Silvio Berlusconi were sown here, in Florence, with a movement that embraces the practical concerns felt in workers clubs like this and the disquiet of the intellectual elite.
16:47 - Ginsborg and friends
This movement has been led by Professor Paul Ginsborg, and a group of a hundred fellow academics. The worries here are not just about the Prime Ministers media ownership, but his attempts to reform the legal system.
17:02
Ginsborg: Well, the threat is a very simple one
17:04 - Ginsborg
that the judiciary, which is one of the most independent in Europe over the last forty years will lose its independence.
17:16
Ginsborg at public meeting
Brissenden: The most contentious of the changes proposed by his government are the plans to allow those facing court to shift the trial from one city to another if they fear the judges are biased.
17:30
Colombo: There will be only two
17:31 - Colombo
beneficiaries of such a law -- Mr Berlusconi personally, the people that are standing trial with him in Milano with him now for bribery and corruption of judges, and mafia people.
17:48 - Footage Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.
Brissenden: The Prime Ministers current legal problems date back to the 1990s and the so-called Clean Hands inquiry headed by then Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.
18:00 - Court hearings
Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.: When you walk in the street, do you ever see 250 million lire handed over for no apparent reason?
18:08
Brissenden: Until that inquiry, it had been an accepted part of business to bribe politicians, tax officials and even judges for favours.
Clean Hands stopped all that and, by the time it had finished, Silvio Berlusconi faced a series of charges relating to his business practices before he entered parliament.
18:28 - TV images of Berlusconi
Even then his media interests proved helpful. Mr. Berlusconi ordered his newspapers and television companies to attack the judiciary.
18:37 - Journalist
Journalist: The mission is to eliminate politicians and to take their place. That is what exactly the judges have tried to do in Italy.
18:45 - TV images of Berlusconi Brissenden:
His legal team managed to get charges of tax evasion dropped by delaying the trials for so long that the cases exceeded the statutes of limitation. But the Prime Minister is still due to face
18:59 - Milan
trial in Milan on one outstanding charge of bribing a judge and it seems hes not keen to front up for his day in court.
19:09 - di Pietro
di Pietro: If Berlusconi, as he claims, is really innocent why doesnt he just front up and say what happened? This process is very simple -- were it not Berlusconi involved, it would have been done in 5-10 minutes.
19:30
Brissenden: Antonio di Pietro is now in Parliament, trying to keep the hands clean from the inside. He says Mr. Berlusconi is misusing political power to avoid justice.
19:42
di Pietro: Actually, Berlusconi does not want to modify this law - he just wants to have an instrument allowing him to have his process delayed by the magistrates in Milan.
19:58 - Colombo in meeting
Brissenden: Furio Colombo points out that Gaetano Pecorella, the lawyer who heads Mr. Berlusconis personal legal team is also the MP pushing the governments changes through Parliament.
20:10
Colombo: So, Mr Pecorella
20:11 - Colombo
in the morning is the chairman of the judiciary committee and accepting or rejecting the amendments which will be crucial for that law. In the afternoon he is Milano office with Mr. Berlusconi as a lawyer in an ongoing trial for which this law is discussed and will be approved by Mr Berlusconis majority.
20:37 - Inside shop
Brissenden: You would think, then, with such obvious manoeuvrings by their Prime Minister, Italian voters would be shocked. Not so.
Music
20:59 - Italian couple
Brissenden: Recent independent opinion polls show 65 percent are happy his performance and only 30 percent were even aware of his plans for the judiciary.
21:11 - Workers clubs
Voters still need to be convinced that Prime Minister Berlusconi is a threat to their democracy. The Left has three and a half years before the next election to do just that.
21:24
Ginsborg: You go to Dockfields famous work on democracy
21:25 - Ginsborg
in America written in the first half of the 19th century, you come to the end of the second volume and what do you read? When the autonomy of the judiciary is under threat and when the Press, which translated in modern terms means the mass media, is not free then the democracy is in danger. That was in the 1830s. Brissenden: And is this a moment like that?Ginsborg: This, for me, is a moment like that. I think that democracy is in danger.
21:58 - Footage Berlusconi
This monopoly of power, this accumulation of power that Silvio Berlusconi has. Thats what disturbs so many of us.
22:12 - BERLUSCONI
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Editor: Mark Douglas
Producer: Denise Eriksen
02:04 - Silvio Berlusconi at rally
Brissenden: For Silvio Berlusconi the prime ministership of Italy is about more than just politics -- he sees himself as a leader, a benefactor and above all a patron.
02:20
Mariano : He can do everything
02:22
Mariano I call him God.
02:26 - Berlusconi
Brissenden: Silvio Berlusconis story is an Italian fable. He rose from middle class beginnings to become the countrys richest and most powerful man.
02:37:19 - Berlusconis family and friend
He has created a modern family empire, run by his son, his daughter and his oldest friends.
02:44 - Footage of President Bush
Its a power which seems to know no bounds.
02:54 - Inside editing room
As Prime Minister and media magnate, he has a stranglehold on Italys all powerful television networks, not to mention newspapers, radio and the Internet.
03:06
Ginsborg : This is the Prime Minister
03:07 - Ginsborg
who says: Im going to rid of various people who I dont like on television. Thats never been done before.
03:16 - Anti Berlusconi rally
Brissenden: And a growing number of Italians are taking to the streets to protest at this media power and his governments plans for new laws which could allow the Prime Minister to avoid trial on charges of bribery and corruption.
Colombo: Silence is the real danger, and thats why you wont be silent, and thats why we are going to keep disturbing all the people saying: Who are these people? Why is this happening?
03:48 - Music
04:04 - Monte Carlo
Brissenden: Monte Carlos hosting the annual general meeting of the Berlusconis family company, Mediaset, and its been another vintage year for the company that controls all of Italys main private TV channels.
04:20 - Black-tie event
This one of the foundation stones of the Berlusconi familys Fininvest holding company.
Fininvest dominates Italian life. It has a controlling stake in all arms of the media, in insurance, advertising and even football.
Prime Minister Berlusconis government pushed through legislation to allow him to keep Mediaset but he does have to leave the day to day running of the company to his son, Piersilvio and daughter, Marina.
04:55
But the fathers shadow is a long one. His stars and news anchors , like Emilio Fede, are also part of the family --and they never let anyone forget that he is their patron and the nations benefactor.
05:09 - Fede
Fede: He has got one defect he is unable to remember who his enemies are - and so he doesnt do anything against them. I dont think its right. He does think its right - he believes in God probably more than I do. As for me, my God lives in Arcore (Berlusconis home) - while his own one is in the sky.
05:34 - Images of Italian man daily routine
Brissenden: Italians wake up to his three private TV channels. They turn on his radio stations. They can read newspapers owned by his brother or funded by his wife. At work, they can log on to his internet service provider. After work, they can call into one of his video shops, rent a movie made by his film company and distributed by his distribution network. They can read his magazines or bestsellers published by the Berlusconis own publishing company. And herein lies the heart of his appeal. He is successful a man many Italians wish they could emulate.
06:17 - Ginsborg
Ginsborg: I think people voted many people vote Berlusconi because they liked him as an entrepreneur, because they wanted to give him a go and because they were very disillusioned with the Centre Left governments, which had governed honestly but without inspiration. And I think thats what the Centre Left had done all over Europe.
06:37 - Berlusconi at rally
He loves to be the Patron and have other people be his clients.
06:42 - Ginsborg
Super fades up Professor Paul Ginsborg Florence University
He will give other people gifts, he will put his patriarchal arm round your shoulder, he will bring you into his coterie in one way or another.
Naples Singing
06:57
Brissenden: In Naples
06:57 - Mariano Appicello and family
This family knows the embrace of the patriarchal arm.
07:01 - Mariano Appicello
Meet Mariano Appicello a former part-time singer in a Naples hotel. Prime Minister Berlusconi heard him sing there just over a year ago and adopted him, perhaps recognising a man after his own heart, after all he began his own career as a cruise ship crooner.
07:21 - Appicello
Super fades up Mariano Appicello Singer
Appicello: I sing and he likes, he was so happy, that he asked can you sing for me in a weekends time, you know. So if you like to follow me, wherever I go, I dont know in Milan or in Rome or in Sardinia and I say yes, I will have time.
Singing
07:58
Appicello: I play mostly parties, but some days I just play for him because he likes too much.
08:09 - Images from magazines
Brissenden: The two men have started writing music together 12 songs so far, for a CD due for release in Italy after Christmas. Mariano writes the tunes, Silvio the words. Theyre both romantics at heart.
08:26 - Mariano
Mariano: Silvio Berlusconi is first a clever man and then he has talent, not just in music but in, I dont know how to say in English but he is an impressadora, hes a leader. Then hes the leader of the Forza Italia in Italy -- he can do everything. [laughs] I call him God.
Singing
09:07
Brissenden: All of that might be quite endearing if he was just Italys
09:10:23 - Footage of Berlusconi
most rich and powerful businessman. But the patron is now the countrys most powerful politician as well.
09:19 - Women watching TV
His private media empire helped build his political success. Pollsters say that women who watched his stations were the most likely to vote for him. But he and his government now control the State television and State radio channels as well meaning that, in all, his government and his family company control 90 percent of Italian media. A situation unprecedented anywhere else in the world and the implications of that are starting to cause unease.
09:57 - Rome rally
This rally in Rome on a hot, late summer afternoon in the massive Piazza San Giovanni attracted at least half a million people. Young people, old people, families and celebrities, like Giuilia Fossá, a former film actress, now a journalist and a writer.
10:18 - Fossá
Fossá: We want to defend democracy and communication. We are journalists, we are cameramen, all citizens, no parties, no politics, just citizens and Italy is ours, you know.
10:32 - Rally
Brissenden: This was the latest and largest in a growing series of demonstrations which began in Florence in January.
10:47
At the heart of this rallys concern was the extent of the Prime Ministers media control. Renowned Italian journalist, Michele Santoro, personifies their fears.
11:00
Fossá: Michele Santoro is a symbol,
11:02
Fossá: but he is one, we are a lot. I used to work on the news for 20 years and I am not working at the moment.
11:09 - Rally
Brissenden: Until recently, Santoro had a satirical program on the government owned RAI network. It had been a constant critic of Berlusconi and his government. The high-rating show was axed earlier this year, apparently after a complaint from the Prime Minister.
11:26 - Santoro
Santoro: All our troubles started when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described our approach in the election campaign - mine and Enzo Biagi - as criminal conduct. So we think the reason why our programs have been cancelled is purely political.
11:53 - Music
12:05 - Man painting office
Brissenden: Now, Michele Santoro and his team wait to see what, if anything, that RAI has in store for them.
12:15 - Cine Citta
Across town, at Cine Citta, Italys Hollywood, the Berlusconi commercial television empire is in production of its latest audience grabbing show. Here they chase ratings, not with contentious local programs, but with popular foreign formats.
12:47
This is Operation Triumph the show where sixteen of Italys wannabe pop stars spend three months, here, in a music academy, being tutored and tested before being accepted or rejected for super stardom. Watched 24 hours a day by cameras a sort of Big Brother with musical passion.
13:13
Once a week, theyre allowed out to perform a concert for their families and friends and for the nation to judge their achievements.
13:24
Its a winning formula, delivering money and ratings at the expense of Italys government channels.
13:34 - Rally
Colombo: The liberty of our country is at risk. It would really be at risk, if you were not here today - if this square was not packed with people.
13:52
Brissenden: Furio Columbo is one of Silvio Berlusconis most vocal critics. Hes a former left wing MP, now a newspaper editor. Hes seen as a potential leader of the Left who could stand against Mr. Berlusconi at the next election.
14:08
Colombo: The problem is when you receive
14:10 - Colombo
signs that you find so many people increasingly are receiving silent warnings about their behaviour. If you are against Berlusconi today, and if you say that clearly, openly, how many chances do you have of finding a job if you are a journalist, if you are a newscaster, if you are the moderator of a talk show.
Super fades up Furio Colombo Editor - L'Unita
14:37 - Music
14:50 - Piersilvio Berlusconi in Monte Carlo
Brissenden: In Monte Carlo, the journalists came to listen to the Prime Ministers son, not to ask him tough questions. It was only later that the question of conflict of interest came up and was denied.
15:06 - Piersilvio
Piersilvio Berlusconi: No, no. Im really speaking honestly like a son. I dont think that since my father has left his job and went to politics, weve ever talked once about television and content and the how are the things going, are you okay?Brissenden: You dont talk politics at home? Piersilvio Berlusconi: We talked politics, but we dont talk politics and business. Plus, I mean, watch our networks. We have news on every political side.
15:46 - Colombo
Colombo: We are not so silly to believe that Mr. Berlusconi sit at the dinner table with his daughter and with his son they dont talk about their empire and about their power and the incredible overlapping of that power with the public power of the Prime Minister.
16:04 - Piersilvio
Piersilvio Berlusconi: See this is a case where you can talk about conflict of interest the other way around. If there is one it s against the development of our company. So its honestly ridiculous when you hear some comments that they would like to stop the development of Mediaset, because of politics.
16:23 - Music
16:30 - Workers club
Brissenden: The seeds for the growing discontent with Silvio Berlusconi were sown here, in Florence, with a movement that embraces the practical concerns felt in workers clubs like this and the disquiet of the intellectual elite.
16:47 - Ginsborg and friends
This movement has been led by Professor Paul Ginsborg, and a group of a hundred fellow academics. The worries here are not just about the Prime Ministers media ownership, but his attempts to reform the legal system.
17:02
Ginsborg: Well, the threat is a very simple one
17:04 - Ginsborg
that the judiciary, which is one of the most independent in Europe over the last forty years will lose its independence.
17:16
Ginsborg at public meeting
Brissenden: The most contentious of the changes proposed by his government are the plans to allow those facing court to shift the trial from one city to another if they fear the judges are biased.
17:30
Colombo: There will be only two
17:31 - Colombo
beneficiaries of such a law -- Mr Berlusconi personally, the people that are standing trial with him in Milano with him now for bribery and corruption of judges, and mafia people.
17:48 - Footage Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.
Brissenden: The Prime Ministers current legal problems date back to the 1990s and the so-called Clean Hands inquiry headed by then Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.
18:00 - Court hearings
Magistrate, Antonio di Pietro.: When you walk in the street, do you ever see 250 million lire handed over for no apparent reason?
18:08
Brissenden: Until that inquiry, it had been an accepted part of business to bribe politicians, tax officials and even judges for favours.
Clean Hands stopped all that and, by the time it had finished, Silvio Berlusconi faced a series of charges relating to his business practices before he entered parliament.
18:28 - TV images of Berlusconi
Even then his media interests proved helpful. Mr. Berlusconi ordered his newspapers and television companies to attack the judiciary.
18:37 - Journalist
Journalist: The mission is to eliminate politicians and to take their place. That is what exactly the judges have tried to do in Italy.
18:45 - TV images of Berlusconi Brissenden:
His legal team managed to get charges of tax evasion dropped by delaying the trials for so long that the cases exceeded the statutes of limitation. But the Prime Minister is still due to face
18:59 - Milan
trial in Milan on one outstanding charge of bribing a judge and it seems hes not keen to front up for his day in court.
19:09 - di Pietro
di Pietro: If Berlusconi, as he claims, is really innocent why doesnt he just front up and say what happened? This process is very simple -- were it not Berlusconi involved, it would have been done in 5-10 minutes.
19:30
Brissenden: Antonio di Pietro is now in Parliament, trying to keep the hands clean from the inside. He says Mr. Berlusconi is misusing political power to avoid justice.
19:42
di Pietro: Actually, Berlusconi does not want to modify this law - he just wants to have an instrument allowing him to have his process delayed by the magistrates in Milan.
19:58 - Colombo in meeting
Brissenden: Furio Colombo points out that Gaetano Pecorella, the lawyer who heads Mr. Berlusconis personal legal team is also the MP pushing the governments changes through Parliament.
20:10
Colombo: So, Mr Pecorella
20:11 - Colombo
in the morning is the chairman of the judiciary committee and accepting or rejecting the amendments which will be crucial for that law. In the afternoon he is Milano office with Mr. Berlusconi as a lawyer in an ongoing trial for which this law is discussed and will be approved by Mr Berlusconis majority.
20:37 - Inside shop
Brissenden: You would think, then, with such obvious manoeuvrings by their Prime Minister, Italian voters would be shocked. Not so.
Music
20:59 - Italian couple
Brissenden: Recent independent opinion polls show 65 percent are happy his performance and only 30 percent were even aware of his plans for the judiciary.
21:11 - Workers clubs
Voters still need to be convinced that Prime Minister Berlusconi is a threat to their democracy. The Left has three and a half years before the next election to do just that.
21:24
Ginsborg: You go to Dockfields famous work on democracy
21:25 - Ginsborg
in America written in the first half of the 19th century, you come to the end of the second volume and what do you read? When the autonomy of the judiciary is under threat and when the Press, which translated in modern terms means the mass media, is not free then the democracy is in danger. That was in the 1830s. Brissenden: And is this a moment like that?Ginsborg: This, for me, is a moment like that. I think that democracy is in danger.
21:58 - Footage Berlusconi
This monopoly of power, this accumulation of power that Silvio Berlusconi has. Thats what disturbs so many of us.
22:12 - BERLUSCONI
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
Camera: Ron Ekkel
Editor: Mark Douglas
Producer: Denise Eriksen