/ 10 August 2004

Italian police blab on Blair

Italian police revealed summer holiday plans of British Prime Minister Tony Blair by inadvertently sending a memo on security measures to Italian media outlets, news agency Ansa reported on Tuesday.

Blair’s wife and children will from Thursday spend a few vacation days at the estate of Prince Guicciardini Strozzi in San Gimignano in Tuscany, according to the internal memo. The prime minister will join his family on August 14.

The first family of British politics will then go on to Sardinia on Monday for a vacation at the mansion of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to the Italian leader’s spokesperson.

”It is strictly a private visit,” insisted the spokesperson, Paolo Bonaiuti, quoted on Tuesday in the daily Il Messagero.

Berlusconi said in late July that the Blairs would be his guests on August 16 and 17, though the visit has yet to be confirmed by the government.

The Italian prime minister arrived on Saturday in Sardinia. — Sapa-AFP