The moral rot of the South

Silvio Berlusconi's main rival in the upcoming elections, Walter Veltroni, Rome's left-wing mayor, has provocatively announced something that, up North, we would not normally spell out. Veltroni will not be accepting anyone on his ticket who has a criminal record.

Is he not being a bit extreme? And impractical, too? It could prove tough to find enough innocent politicians in Italy to fill the Veltroni list.

According to the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, the current Italian parliament contains around 80 known or suspected crooks, 24 of whom have been convicted of various crimes and 57 have 'legal difficulties'. That leaves an indeterminate number who have not yet been caught.

As a Northerner I find it tough to admit that the Mediterranean rot has long since spread up from the Garlic Belt. Upright Germania is the latest victim.

Rich people are greedy; that is well known. Otherwise they would be poor. So most rich people up North have felt it necessary to move out of the Lutheran Belt, where paying taxes is, more than anything else, a moral duty and everyone is watching.

Switzerland has been the favourite place to go since the 1930s, the ideal destination for money stolen from Jews, Africans, or simply from fellow taxpayers.

Some prefer Switzerland's little toe, Liechtenstein. This cosy tax-haven in the mountains seems to have little other raison d'tre except as a haven for tax dodgers, a nest for the royal family's own loot and - how could I forget? - the home of Europe's biggest false teeth factory.

Yes, up North we enjoy Schadenfreude as much as everyone else and it was not without pleasure that we observed the downfall of Klaus Zumwinkel, Deutsche Post's chief executive, together with hundreds of his wealthy countrymen, all caught with their hands deep in the honey pot.

We feel pain as well as the warm satisfaction of self-righteousness. How could fellow Northerners be so greedy? But we also feel pride that we are sorting it out properly. In Mediterranean cultures such washing-up jobs are normally left to the violent attentions of criminal rivals.

In Germany it was, Gott sei Dank!, the Bundesnachrichtendienst itself which pitched in. Not that the rich were especially grateful, accusing the authorities of "unethical methods" - a substantial bribe - to get the information they needed.

But most Northerners are generally intolerant about public misconduct, and do not accept that the Southern way of constant double-dealing is a necessary part of a rich cultural heritage. Cold climates tend to discourage such moral rot, which makes the prospect of global warming even more disturbing.

Silvio Berlusconi's main rival in the upcoming elections, Walter Veltroni, Rome's left-wing mayor, has provocatively announced something that, up North, we would not normally spell out. Veltroni will not be accepting anyone on his ticket who has a criminal record.