Italian magistrates investigating a prostitution ring have been wiretapping prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and have recorded the oligarch boasting about ordering eleven women for a single night (he was only able to have sex with eight of them), complaining that meeting with David Cameron and the Pope interferes with his womanizing, and stating that he is only prime minister in his spare time.

Berlusconi, who boasted to one TV showgirl that he was only "prime minister in my spare time", told Tarantini in September 2008 that he needed to reduce the flow of women since he had a "terrible week" ahead seeing Pope Benedict, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown. Berlusconi has long insisted that his private parties are informal but elegant affairs, that extend only as far as joke telling and songs, but is revealed on the tapes as putting pressure on Tarantini and his associates to conjure up beautiful female guests...

In a letter published in the newspaper Il Foglio, Berlusconi hit back at the latest wiretaps, claiming: "My private life is not a crime, my lifestyle may or may not please, it is personal, reserved and irreproachable."

Silvio Berlusconi wiretaps reveal boast of spending night with eight women