Simon Cowell - A Berlusconi for our nation.

What a wonderful leveler a punch (or a brick) in the face is. The pictures of a bloodied Silvio Berlusconi that appeared in the papers this morning show a scared and confused politician who for all his huge wealth and power is brought to the level of any other human being by a simple act of physical confrontation. In this country there has been a tendency to sneer at Berlusconi and patronisingly assume that such a crass figure could never make it in British politics. News that Simon Cowell is considering introducing the X factor format into politics should give pause for thought however.