G20, villains, media and all that

The G20 is over.

Shame in a way, I had been enjoying going to the office in jeans and T-shirt and then, in the evening, watching the news showing ninja-lookalike economists creating havoc in the City of London.

The protesters were of course, as always, full of ideas. Destroy here! Destroy there! Death to capitalism! Hang the bankers! Global warming is frying us! America is evil... well, no, surprise surprise, this time around the anti-americanism was, unlike in the previous G# meetings, not as much a part of the agenda. This year with the credit crunch sweeping across the world, it could have been the protesters’ finest hour but, damn it, Dubya is not in the White House anymore... so they were a bit dull, I must say: without the villain, there are no heroes.

But the media need a villain too, and gone Dubya, there is still Berlusconi… In fact, the Metro this morning (3rd April) on page three had a pathetic mockery of the Italian PM G20 days, where it is claimed he has fallen out of favour with Obama. The article was a kind of a diary, supposed to be read with an Italian accent. It was supposed to be funny, but I found it misleading, stupid and offensive.

Then tonight I got a copy of the London Lite and there was the news of the Queen angry at Berlusconi. I then went home and checked the website for more clues. From the video you can hear Berlusconi calling Mr Obama! Mr Obama! in a loud voice, but Italians are loud, believe me, nothing new here. The Queen was probably caught by surprise but she is 80-something and her husband is Prince Philip. Have I said enough?

I can't anyway see the point of making such a big fuss about this meeting of the G20 (why they keep growing anyway, they were 7, then 8, what next? 37?). The heads of the states at the meeting were all clueless about how to make the economy running again, nobody more than Gordon Brown, who came up with this ridiculous meeting (costing UK taxpayers £50 million pounds) in order to beat the French at something, and then pretend to still have a reason to be in power.

Brown is acting like a wannabe leader of the world (he has claimed to have saved it already, do you remember?) when in fact he has not won a single general election in his life and, if the opinion polls are right, when finally the British citizens will be asked to cast their vote at the next election, Gordon Brown will be history.

That’s a nice thought for the next G20 or G8 or G whatever-many-countries-there-are-going-to-be.