THE death on Monday (Jun 12) of Italy’s longest-serving prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, shone a spotlight on how much European politics has changed in the last few decades in a populist direction.

After taking office in 1994 for the first time, the billionaire businessman led four Italian governments until 2011, although not consecutively.

He showed a remarkable propensity to bounce back from sex scandals and corruption cases (he faced trial at least 36 times), and in many ways was a forerunner of many of the populist politicians of today in Europe like the UK’s Boris Johnson, and indeed further afield too, such as former US president Donald Trump.