Cheek by Jowell - New Labour's Italian Lawyer

Where to begin on New Labour's latest scandal? Me thinks love of the rich man and celebrity culture is at the heart of this funny funny story.

“I believe it would be wiser to refrain from comment on the allegedly crucial role played by David Mills, the fanatically New Labour husband of Blair’s culture minister Tessa Jowell, in allegedly giving Berlusconi considerable legal assistance over rather controversial matters relating to allegedly massive international capital flows that preoccupied certain Milanese magistrates. On the other hand, there is no similar risk of falling foul of Britain’s draconian defamation laws in highlighting the fact that Prince Strozzi with whom Blair spent some of his Tuscan holidays is widely known to be a supporter of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia rather than of the Ulivo.” (from What Next Journal, Berlusconi and Europe, Tobias Abse).

...but as Silvio himself once said, "The political tradition of ancient thought, filtered in Italy by Machiavelli, says one thing clearly: every prince needs allies, and the bigger the responsibility, the more allies he needs." Only problem now is it seems as if Mills is going to sing like a canary.

Yesterday Fabio de Pasquale and Alfredo Robledo, the Milan prosecutors in the case, said that a plea bargain was under discussion. Federico Cecconi, Mr Mills’s chief defence lawyer in Milan, confirmed that it was “an option”. Signor Cecconi disclosed that he had spent the past three days in talks in the canton of Ticino in Switzerland, close to the Swiss-Italian border.

Legal sources said that if Mr Mills were guilty of an offence and collaborated, he could expect a symbolic sentence of less than a year in prison — possibly suspended. Sources close to the investigation said they believed that Mr Mills could provide evidence damaging to the Italian leader, especially if he agreed to plea bargaining.

Craig Murray's good on this: " Finally, yesterday I reported a fact that the mainstream media still does not dare to print; that Mills was under Serious Fraud Office investigation (and his office was raided as a result) at around the same time that New Labour came to power. I also reported that some of the SFO staff on the case were confused and concerned that no prosecution arose."

More here...

1 comment

All very murky. I can't remember which Nu Labour politician was being described but this fits any of them: 'People say that X is Machiavellian, but at least with Machiavelli you knew where you were.'

left by delescluze on 01 March 2006