WHY I LIKE THE ITALIAN POLICE

In spite of the shocking brutality in Genoa,

says Nicholas Farrell, Italian policemen tend

to be reasonable — and flexible —fellows

Predappio THE Italian police have not had a very encouraging press in the past fortnight. First they shot dead a rioter at the anti-G8 demonstrations in Genoa. Then, to make matters worse in the eyes of the London tabloids, they arrested five Britons, beat them up and banned them from Italy for five years.

Such brutality is great for unreconstructed lefties. It enables them to change the subject from globalisation (which is. let's face it. pretty boring) to something more interesting. An Italian journalist, Vittorio Longhi, writing in last Friday's Guardian, delivered a textbook performance. 'We were not in Genoa, nor in Italy, but in another place and another time', he wrote. 'It looked like an attempt to substitute the current order with a police state.' From where I was sitting in front of the television it looked like an attempt to substitute the current order with a mob state.

It would be idle to deny, however, that the police behaved disgracefully in Genoa. But they were brutal not because they like to inflict pain, for political or other reasons, but because, like all Italian police, they are badly trained and badly organised, at least when it comes to dealing with the forces of anti-globalisation. The British police are better trained and better organised, and do a much better job when confronting rioters and demonstrators.

Even so. I like the Italian police. I'd rather deal with them than with the British police (unless I happened to be rioting). Whereas the British bobby plays it rigidly by the book. his Italian counterpart often turns out to be your flexible friend. The nice thing about an Italian cop is that you can offer him a cigarette and reason with him.

Since arriving in Predappio three years ago to write a book about Mussolini, I have never once been bopped with a baton. And that cannot be explained entirely by the fact that when the police flag me down, I tend to break the ice by mentioning the Duce.

There is not just one police force in Italy, of course. No one knows how many there are. I can think of nine off the top of my head. But it is the carabinieri and

the vigili urbani — traffic wardens with guns — with whom I have most contact. I began to develop respect for the carabinieri when a group of men in a nearby town conducted a citizen's arrest on me in the dead of night thinking I was an Albanian burglar. My black fedora hat and swarthy complexion perhaps explain the misunderstanding.

At the time I was trying to discover if a woman I was secretly courting was at home. I did not want to ring her because her mother might have answered and our secret would have been out. So I set off for the peach grove behind the house to see if my girlfriend's car was there. No sooner had I set foot on the track leading to the peach grove than dogs began to bark on all sides. I ran back towards my car, which I had left in the street out the front.

From nowhere a group of men surrounded me and grabbed hold of me. Their leader shouted. Tennati, bnato albanese! Dove vai?' (roughly speaking, 'Stop right there, you ugly Albanian! Where do you think you are you going?'). 'E, scusa ma non sono albanese, sono inglese' ('Hey, excuse me, but I'm not Albanian, I'm English.), I replied in vain. It was not until two squad cars arrived on the scene that the local neighbourhood watch let go of my arm.

I came clean at once with the maresciallo (marshal), and told him man to man that I would rather not reveal the identity of the woman or which was her house. He could see from my passport that I was not Albanian. He asked me what I was doing in Italy. 'I'm writing a biography of Mussolini,' I said. 'He is a much misunderstood man.' He went off to his squad car to run a check on me. He returned and asked, `So it's una questione d'amore?' I said: 'Si.' He handed back my passport. Wa bene. But mi raccommando, write the truth about the Duce.' He had not insisted on my naming the woman I was seeing. He had believed my story. I cannot see an English policeman behaving with such grace.

In Britain, the police's obsession with drink-drive and motoring offences makes it impossible for civilised people outside towns to go out at night. But in my experience Italy is a paradise for the (responsible) drinking driver. In Britain I gave up driving years ago. The British police will breathalyse the driver of any car stopped after closing time, however well the car is being driven. Here, I drink and drive all the time. Often I am stopped at night by the carabinieri. Not once have I been breathalysed. Unless a driver is driving dangerously, or is obviously drunk, the carabinieri do not seem interested in breathalysing him.

Nor do they rigorously enforce even obviously sensible laws. A good friend of mine here has Parkinson's. He therefore cannot get a driving licence, much less car insurance. Yet he drives everywhere in his Cinquecento, with the tacit approval of the local police, who believe that his convenience and psychological wellbeing are more important than a mere law designed to protect the lives of other road-users. They are right, of course. My friend occasionally bumps into things in his car, but only the communists and other spoilsports complain.

Yet there is — or was — one Italian policeman who was unquestionably a bad hat. His doings were regularly and indignantly reported in the local newspaper. He was a vigile urbano. He played it by the book, and was aggressive. His nickname was Lo Scertffo. His victims included the maresciallo, the sindaco (mayor) and the priest, who had then called him carogna (rotting carcass). He sued the priest for slander and won. Mussolini did not make a blind bit of difference with La Sceriffo. He fined me /60 on the spot for parking within five metres of a junction. He calculated the distance with a tape measure. So unpopular was he that some years ago the sindaco began the moves necessary to have him transferred. This year the sindaco succeeded. Local government, reflecting the will of local people, had run the sheriff out of town.

In the wake of Genoa, but presumably not as a result, the new Berlusconi government has just announced that it is going to increase the speed limit on motorways to 160 kph, which I reckon is 99.2 mph. An opposition senator commented, 'To propose to an Italian to drive faster is like giving a bottle of wine to an alcoholic.' The government's popularity, I have to report, has rocketed overnight.