the times | Monday February 21 2022 2GM 33
Wo r l d
Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian
prime minister, has revealed plans for a
new university to train young politi-
cians, complete with a sexologist who
will teach the secrets of body language.
Berlusconi, 85, who hosted “bunga
bunga” striptease parties while heading
a regime dogged by corruption claims,
will also be among the lecturers, Italian
media reported at the weekend. The
Universitas Libertatis will be based at
Villa Gernetto, a 60-bedroom property
surrounded by parkland in Lombardy
that the millionaire media mogul owns.
“The aim is to provide training for the
future generation of politicians, some-
thing political parties no longer do, so
energy from a “disgustingly sweet”
herbal tea he sipped.
Negrosini also tackles couples thera-
py, which Berlusconi appeared to need
in 2009 when his wife walked out on
him, accusing him of “frequenting
minors”. Negrosini said she was beingThousands of demonstrators gathered
at the opposition Popular Party head-
quarters yesterday to show their
support for Isabel Díaz Ayuso, Madrid’s
regional president, after the PP leader
accused her of corruption.
Pablo Casado was forced to back-
track after saying that Ayuso, 43, had
used her position to help her brother to
profit from a €1.5 million PPE contract
signed in May 2020 at the height of the
first wave of the coronavirus. By Friday
night he had agreed to close the matter
in Ayuso’s favour but influential figures
in the party have called for Casado, 41,
to resign.
Ayuso, dubbed Spain’s Margaret
Thatcher and widely regarded as a
future PP leader, said the corruption
Don’t look back The 2022 Venice Carnival, which runs in the city and online until March 1, takes the theme “Remember the future”, after a quote by Salvador Dalí
Book thief, 81,
comes clean
after 60 years
Germany
Oliver Moody
“Communism,” Karl Marx and Fried-
rich Engels wrote in 1848, “deprives no
man of the power to appropriate the
products of society.”
In the early 1960s, an idealistic young
man in the western German city of
Mönchengladbach appears to have
taken them all too literally. He
borrowed an 1883 edition of Engels’
writings from the local library of the
Catholic Workers’ Welfare Association
and, in between reading The Peasant
War in Germany and The Development
of Socialism from Utopia to Science, he
seems to have decided not to return it.
After all, as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,
a French socialist comrade of Engels,
wrote: “What is property? It is theft.”
Sixty years later, the book thief, now
81, had a change of heart. Staff at the
city library in Mönchengladbach were
taken aback when the missing Engels
turned up in a parcel from the south of
France, with a two-page letter “begging
your pardon a thousand times over” for
the late return of the book.
The library has waived the fine and
crossed the title off its list of missing
books. There are, however, another 854
to go. Guido Weyer, director of the city
library’s archive, said: “When the
association was banned by the Nazis in
1933, the books that were out on loan
probably couldn’t be returned.”STEFANO MAZZOLA/GETTY IMAGESProtesters support ‘Thatcher of Spain’
claims were “cruel and unjust”. She
accused party members of trying to
hire detectives to investigate her and
spy on her brother.
Senior PP figures said the biggest
beneficiary from the public feud would
be the far-right Vox movement.
Esperanza Aguirre, the former PP
president of Madrid, called for Teodoro
García Egea, the party secretary-
general, to resign and said she was
thinking of pushing for Casado’s
resignation.
Ayuso broadened her appeal
from traditional right-wing
voters during the pandemic with
a policy of keeping bars, restau-
rants and leisure centresopen whereas other regions put strict
controls on people’s movements.
Many of those whose businesses
were pulled back from the brink were
among the 3,000 people who gathered
at PP headquarters to demand Casado’s
removal. Wrapped in Spanish flags, the
crowd shouted: “We are all with Ayuso”
and “Casado is a traitor, Ayuso is the
best”.
A poll for the newspaper El Con-
fidencial showed that 71 per cent of
PP backers want her to head the
national government, compared
with 14.5 per cent for Casado.
The pair rose through the party
ranks together: Ayuso’s
everywoman appeal pro-
pelling her swift rise,
while Casado found
powerful backers despite
his lack of charisma.Spain
Jennifer O’Mahony Madrid
The death of a 25-year-old hiker from a
shot by a teenage hunter has caused
anger in France and demands from left-
wing presidential candidates for curbs
on game shooting.
The victim was walking on a marked
path near the village of Cassaniouze in
the Massif Central on Saturday when
she was hit by a heavy rifle bullet fired
by a 17-year-old girl taking part in a
boar shoot. She died at the scene. The
teenager, who has a gun licence, has
been held by police for questioning on
possible manslaughter charges.
The death has re-ignited emotion
over the poor safety record of France’s
million active chasseurs, or hunters, aHunting becomes an election
issue after hiker is shot dead
body supported by President Macron.
The centrist president, who is aiming
for re-election in April, has subsidised
the sport with state funds, deeming it to
be a valuable component of national
heritage, a view shared by conservative
and far-right parties.
Three people have been killed this
month. Last year 11 people were shot
dead and 136 wounded by shotguns and
rifles.
Left-wing presidential candidates
demanded bans on hunting at week-
ends and on school holidays. Yannick
Jadot, the Greens’ contender, tweeted:
“We have to regulate this activity more.
It’s urgent.” David Belliard, deputy to
the Socialist candidate Anne Hidalgo,
called for a weekend ban on “this
dangerous and inhumane practice”.France
Charles Bremner ParisIsabel Díaz Ayuso is dubbed
Spain’s Thatcher and seen
as a future party leaderBerlusconi university will sex up politics
Italy
Tom Kington Rome
Berlusconi’s initiative is very useful at
filling a gap,” Mario Baccini, a former
government minister who will teach
finance, said. Enrolment will cost about
€1,000, he said, with many courses
taught online.
Joining the roster of lecturers will be
Sara Negrosini, who describes herself
as a “clinical sexologist treating sexual
ailments”, including loss of libido.
Berlusconi never suggested during
his long political career that he had
needed such advice, once joking that
when a pollster asked women if they
would have sex with him, 33 per cent
said yes, while the remainder said
“Again?” A professional escort, Patrizia
D’Addario, complimented Berlusconi’s
“Guinness Book of Records” stamina in
bed, saying that he seemed to drawhired to teach politicians how to control
their body language, using her training
in “humanist psychotherapy and bio-
energy”. She told the Italian daily La
Repubblica: “I will show them how to
adopt an assertive body language that
can engage the public.”
Berlusconi worked hard on main-
taining a smiling, cheerful appearance
during his career, saying his father told
him: “You must have the sun in your
pocket and know how to give it to
others with a smile.”
His obsession with staying young
through hair transplants, make-up and
alleged facelifts paved the way for
appearance-obsessed leaders such as
Donald Trump and President Putin.
Berlusconi did come under fire for his
body language, including an occasionwhen he gestured and looked Michelle
Obama up and down as he greeted her
in 2009.
The former prime minister has
nursed an ambition to found a univer-
sity since 2010, when he announced
that he was opening the “University of
Liberal Thought”, where his friend
Putin would be among the lecturers.
Many thought Berlusconi would
retire this year after a failed attempt to
win the Italian presidency coincided
with one of his increasingly frequent
visits to hospital.
He showed that he was still physical-
ly active this weekend as he watched
Monza, the second division football
team he owns, and swapped a kiss with
his partner, Martina Fascina, 32, when
his team scored.Body talk: Silvio Berlusconi in 2009
with President and Michelle Obama