Three strikes and you are out

So David Mills,the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell has lost his appeal against hsi sentence for accepting a $600,000 bribe from Silvio Berlusconi in 1997.

Mills will have to pay 250,000 euros as damages to the Italian government.

He won't yet have to face the jail sentence of 4 and a half years as in the Italian courts he has a third appeal to lodge

Quite where this leaves the Italian Prime Minister is not clear.He managed to secure immunity over the charges but this was overturned by the Italian courts and he may have to stand trial.

Why Berlusconi will survive

Silvio Berlusconi is under pressure over his sexual dalliances but according to Antonio Polito,editor of Il Riformista, a centre-left Italian newspaper,his job is safe.

Writing in the Independent he says that

Sexual scandals are regarded as far less serious than financial ones. Italians regard private life and sexuality very differently from the British – it would require a book to explain (and maybe even that would not be enough). The simple fact is that a man with many women is an object of admiration; this is not an attitude unique to Italy but perhaps we are less hypocritical about acknowledging it than some other nations.

Mills gets 4 1/2 years

I think that the Orange Party blog has got it just spot on

Sleazy Silvio Berlusconi got away scot-free but no such luck for corrupt estranged husband of Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, with an Italian court finding him guilty of taking a bribe and locking him up for four and a half years.

The estranged husbland Of Jowell David Mills was found guilty of accepting a bribe worth £400,000 from the Italian Prime Minister which was used to help pay off their mortgage.

Mills maintains his innocence in all this and it is unlikely that this will reflect on the Olympics minister.

We await the judge's reason for sentance