Jeremy Paxman stuns Silvio Berlusconi with Angela Merkel insult allegation.
With less than a month remaining in his role as Newsnight's rottweiler-in-chief, Jeremy Paxman has added another high-profile scalp to his legacy of public-figure grillings.
Demonstrating that his decision to leave the programme after 25 years has not doused any of the fire in his notoriously combative interview technique, he rendered the former Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, temporarily speechless after asking him: "Do you have a particular problem with Angela Merkel? Is it true you called her an unfuckable lard-arse?"
The question, which followed a series of innocuous warm-up questions posed to the scandal-ridden former Italian leader about the EU and the euro, appeared to leave him momentarily stunned as an interpreter relayed it to him through an earpiece. When he recovered his composure, he said that he had never insulted anyone in 20 years of politics and that the alleged insult was "made up by someone who wanted to turn Angela Merkel against me". Warming to the theme, an amused-looking Paxman also asked Berlusconi if the incident when he jumped out from behind a monument and said "cuckoo" to the German chancellor "was just a joke".
The former Italian leader, who was forced to resign in November 2011 after losing his parliamentary majority, insisted that far from being an insult, it was testament to his close relationship with Merkel. "She enjoyed it," he replied. "I explained why I did the cuckoo thing. A few days earlier I had been to St Petersburg to visit Putin. Putin hid behind a pillar and did cuckoo to me from behind. Merkel and I were on really good terms so when she came to Trieste, I thought of what Putin had done and I basically hid behind a monument and did the same thing. It was funny."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/21/jeremy-paxman-stuns-silvio-berlusconi-angela-merkel-insult-allegation
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