The tapes continue to come out. Today the Corriere published several very damning tapes in which Berlusconi allegedly illustrated a road map of the government's collapse last month. He had hoped to organize- or buy- a mass defection of over a dozen senators so as to provoke a dramatic political crisis that could only have been resolved- in Berlusconi's mind- by immediate elections under the actual electoral laws.

The political chips in this is that all the suspected senators on the left are forced to be good boys. Yesterday, the Prodi government resorted to three confidence votes in the Senate without undue tension.

Concerning your question, these are the actual audio tapes, the smoking gun so to say, with the verbatim transcripts. The publication of the more frivolous tapes is a clear signal that the papers are sitting on the worst tapes.

If you recall the election thread we had up here, you may remember that for long periods there were no results from Palermo and Campania. The publication of the results was being held up deliberately by Mediaset-RAI, according to taped conversations. Why? Your hypothesis is as good as mine.

The whole matter is now a matter of criminal inquiry. We'll see how far that goes.