The idea that a government loses its innovativeness and gains complacency if it remains in power for too long has always been something of a fixture in the world of politics. In the United States the president, and his administration, cannot sit for more than two terms for this reason amongst others. In the UK, even those who do not necessarily dislike the Labour party are considering voting against them in the upcoming election, precisely because they believe that the current government, in power since 1997, has become stagnant and that the UK requires new leadership regardless of their policies. Many believe that the UK requires new leadership regardless of their policies. In such scenarios it is considered not so much the aim of the opposition to win the election, but to allow the government to lose it. There is one European leader who has managed time and time again to debunk this truism; Silvio Berlusconi. He is the longest serving current leader of a G8 country and the longe ...

If a day is a long time in politics, then a decade is certainly a long term in the automotive industry. Ten years ago if someone had predicted that Fiat would be a global powerhouse they would have been laughed out of the room. Giovanni Agnelli, patriarch of the family firm, famously summed up the company:“I fear that Fiat is too big for Italy, and too small for the world.” The arrogance of Fiat’s then management believed that Italians would always buy Fiats and relied on national pride as a means of making profits. Silvio Berlusconi, like many of those before him, encouraged the cavalier attitude with protectionist measures and romantic statements - “Many of us Italian men kissed our first girl in a Fiat 500, Fiat is in all our hearts.” Saddled with debt, and after successive failing models, General Motors (at that time the world’s number one automaker) paid $2bn in 2005 just to avoid buying Fiat’s car making business, after holding a 20% minority stake since 2000. Now ...

Italy has been faced with a number of economic, political, and social challenges (the Naples rubbish crisis and the collapse of Alitalia to name but two) with most of its European allies turning their back. Now the United States, Italy’s strongest bilateral ally, has elected a president who left Italian’s insulted by leaving Rome out of his tour of key allied capitals. Leaders around the world would do well to remember that although it is no longer the case that all roads lead to Rome, much still flows from it. While Obama has bypassed Italy, he has stated that "France, Germany and the United Kingdom are key anchors of the transatlantic alliance and have contributed to the mission in Afghanistan, and I look forward to discussing how we can strengthen our partnership in the years to come." But wasn’t Italy one of the view European nations to offer political and military support in Iraq, when the US was under unwavering criticism for its ‘imperialist’ actions? Moreo ...

The credit crunch made everyone an economist. Politicians, intellectuals, journalists and the man on the street have their own theories about what went wrong and why, and even more worrying, what we should now do about it. The symptoms of the credit crunch could well be worse than the condition itself, as people around the world look with distrust and distaste at capitalism. It is clear that economics affects everyone, and as a consequence should matter to everyone. What is shocking is how little of it is understood, from the classroom to the cabinet. Alexander Pope got it right in 1711 when he noted that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, and if we are not careful our recently reinvigorated scepticism of capitalism may well cripple the quality of life for many generations to come. There are two aspects of globalisation that must be understood. The first is increased free trade between nations, which essentially results in access to a larger range and quality of goods a ...