Silvio Berlusconi the end of April 2009, Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario, who would divorce him several years later, wrote an open letter expressing her anger at Berlusconi's choice of young, attractive female candidates—some with little or no political experience—to represent the party in the 2009 European Parliament elections. Berlusconi demanded a public apology, claiming that for the third time his wife had "done this to me in the middle of an election campaign", and stated that there was little prospect of his marriage continuing. On 3 May, Lario announced she was filing for divorce. She claimed that Berlusconi had not attended his
Records of members of parliament of the United Kingdom and was MP for Reading at the time of his death in 1648, a period spanning 73 years, although there were eight periods, amounting to 27 entire years (1590–92, 1594–96, 1599–1600, 1602–03, 1605–13, 1615–19, 1627 and 1630–39) in which the Parliament of England did not meet, and his period of service totalled little more than 23 years. The longest span of service of an MP since the start of the 20th century was Winston Churchill who was first elected on 1 October 1900 and left the House of Commons on 25 September 1964, a period of 63 years 360 days.