Robust Morality

The sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak and his minions have been lecturing Italian officialdom. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope's grandissimo pompompolorissimo della teocrazia, said two days ago that public figures outside the church should be "committed to a more robust morality, a sense of justice and lawfulness"; and the sixteenth Daddy Goodspeak himself has followed up by telling policemen to "rediscover their spiritual and moral roots", as under Mussolini, presumably. In certain uncharitable quarters, these remarks are being interpreted as referring to the Vicar of Downing Street's second best chum Silvio Berlusconi, who is under investigation for having sex with a juvenile prostitute and then abusing his office to cover it up. Aside from the regrettable fact that the alleged sex was with a teenage female and was so consensual as to have been actually paid for, it hardly seems likely that the Pontiff of Paedophilia would object to this; particularly given Berlusconi's resolutely ethical stance on tax breaks for the Vatican.