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Why Nancy Dell'Olio will miss that nice Mr Berlusconi

Italians might be fearful for the future and have little to thank Silvio Berlusconi for, but that's not stopping Nancy Dell'Olio from lavishing the outgoing Italian prime minister with praise
Nancy Dell'Olio
Nancy Dell'Olio: 'Silvio is absolutely charming … If you met him at dinner, you could have a lot of fun.' Photograph: Antony Jones/UK Press/Press Association Images

Felicitous developments for the eurozone's biggest problemo. Even as Italian government bonds hurtled past the 7% mark this week, a Juno-like goddess was waking from her slumber and preparing to dispense positively celestial economic analysis. Prostrate yourselves, debtors, for Ms Nancy Dell'Olio – invited on to the comment pages of the Times to discourse on the crisis engulfing her motherland.

If you were one of those people who wondered "whither Nancy?" when her leaden turn on Strictly Come Dancing came to an end a fortnight ago, you are strongly advised to welcome madam's re-entry to public life. Of course, chances are you suspected Nancy would surface as Portsmouth manager, or as holiday cover for Carol McGiffin on Loose Women. But looking back, her emergence as a key eurozone market mover was always going to be the next step for the endlessly versatile 32-year-old.

I say "market mover", but perhaps we should more accurately describe Nancy as a market mover-cum-stateswoman. "I quite fancy being Italy's foreign minister," she trills in mischievous conclusion to her column.

Can it really be coincidence that no sooner had these words been printed than Italian bond yields fell back below 7%, and Silvio Berlusconi was reported to have warmed to the idea of a technical government? With Nancy given the Minister for Chutzpah brief in that administration, that elusive market confidence surely could not fail to follow.

In the meantime, it was Berlusconi whom Nancy came to praise in her intriguing column, which began with the statement: "Italians will miss Silvio Berlusconi."

Nancy had worked hard to get the outgoing prime minister elected, she explained, as an organiser on his first campaign. Why? "Mr Berlusconi was like John F Kennedy," opines the erstwhile consort of nomadic football impresario Sven-Göran Eriksson. "He used the power of the media and of football to talk about a modern kind of politics," she goes on, reminding us that state-controlled media is avant garde, and that Milan's legendary run of form in the late 80s and early 90s was basically a way of engaging young minds on the benefits of a massive and corrupt bureaucracy and a third-rate education system. Or as Nancy puts it: "All of us felt that it was our duty to be involved in something that was going to change the face of politics in Italy for the better."

How did that work out for ya, Nance?

On Berlusconi's appeal, though, she is instructive. "He is absolutely charming and very charismatic," she reveals, "But a bit too much of a chauvinist for my taste." However: "If you met him at dinner, you could have a lot of fun."

You could. Or you could end up being semi-trafficked back to his pool house and having to play sardines. But touchingly, really, Nancy's admiration remains pretty much undimmed. "With Mr Berlusconi," she explains, "it was always about power, but not about using it in a sinister or negative way."

Mm. And with that, we'll ascend with her to her glorious conclusion. The economic meltdown does not mean Italians will be "changing how we live", Nancy declares, presumably from the large Regent's Park house given to her by Sven after The Unpleasantness. Perhaps of most keen interest to the near 30% of Italian youth unable to find work is Nancy's insistence that it is absolutely business as usual. As she explains: "Nothing will stop Italians eating good food and wearing good clothes."

You hear that? Nothing. Thus the dazzling next act of Nancy's life appears to be under way. I'm not sure if we're on the second act, or the third, or even the 10th or 11th – but as always it promises to add to the gaiety of any number of nations, and we wish milady every success along the way.

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