As Italian newspapers yesterday published photographs taken by call girls in the bathroom of Silvio Berlusconi's Rome residence and investigators expressed concerns over lapses of security, it was business as normal for the centre-right government with the prime minister's supporters denying the latest “scandal” would lead to his downfall.
“I don't see any changes in the (parliamentary) majority that could provoke a fall of the government,” said Claudio Scajola, minister for economic development. “And there are no other democratic mechanisms to bring about a change of the executive,” he told the daily Corriere della Sera.
So far two women, one a self-described hostess and the other a former escort, have gone public with allegations that they were paid by a businessman in Bari, southern Italy, to attend parties at Mr Berlusconi's Villa Grazioli and his residence in Sardinia.