Friday, 12 September, 2025
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Is London sexy or a dangerous hellhole?

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

In what can only be described as deeply annoying, the London Evening Standard newspaper this week published a list of the “100 sexiest Londoners.” This has, alas, scuppered this publication’s plans for a piece entitled “The 100 sexiest people working in the Brussels Bubble” that was just 100 people away from completion.

No. 1 in the Standard’s list is Neil Amin Smith, former violinist in Grammy-award winning band Clean Bandit and now special adviser to Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Of course, anyone with even a passing interest in social media will have been told — by Russian bots pretending to be normal people “who are just concerned and definitely not racist,” and with at least two English flags in their bio — that London is not in the slightest bit sexy and is in fact a hellhole populated by ghastly foreigners. Not only that, but if you complain about the conditions there, you’ll be attacked by the “Woke Leftist Brigade” — incidentally, also the name of my university indie band.

This gap between left and right is growing by the day. This is even the case in liberal America (have you read the news this year? — ed), where staff at Vanity Fair magazine were reportedly furious at the suggestion that model-turned-hostage Melania Trump grace the cover.

“I will walk out the motherfucking door, and half my staff will follow me,” one editor told the Daily Mail, presumably in between such woke activities as reading and drinking coffee (and also vastly overestimating reporters’ loyalty to editors).

You know who’d have no truck with all this sensitivity and hand-wringing? Silvio Berlusconi, that’s who. If only the former Italian prime minister weren’t dead.

But his wealth lives on. Villa Certosa, Berlusconi’s sprawling Sardinian estate, is officially on the market (despite repeated emails, my request that POLITICO buy it and turn it into my office have gone unanswered). The 4,500-square-meter seafront residence was the scene of infamous “bunga bunga” parties, the sex-fueled soirées that dogged Berlusconi’s political career — and that means it will need the deepest of deep cleans.

However, it’ll cost a lot to live in Berlusconi’s former palace of sin. According to Mansion Global, which sells houses to rich folk, Brendan Blumer, the American founder of Block.one — apparently a cryptocurrency firm and not a plumber’s as I originally thought — splashed out €160 million on a Sardinian villa, and Villa Certosa could sell for double that amount.

Not many people — aside from very senior European Commission staff — could afford to spend that much cash on a property. Donald Trump is one of them and could do it just to wind up European leaders. Perhaps newly engaged lovebirds Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce fancy an Italian island getaway? There’s already an Italian collection as her upcoming album “The Life Of A Showgirl” — also the name of my memoirs — is available in “Sweat and Vanilla Perfume Portofino Orange Glitter Vinyl“.

CAPTION COMPETITION

“Hands up who doesn’t want to be French prime minister.”

Can you do better? Email us at pdallison@politico.eu or get in touch on X @POLITICOEurope.

Last week, we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best one from our mailbag — there’s no prize except the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far preferable to cash or booze.

“It was because of that sofa that I argued with my wife Brigitte on the plane, but it’s so classy that it was absolutely worth it.”

by Giovanni Cellini

LP Staff Writers

Writers at Lord’s Press come from a range of professional backgrounds, including history, diplomacy, heraldry, and public administration. Many publish anonymously or under initials—a practice that reflects the publication’s long-standing emphasis on discretion and editorial objectivity. While they bring expertise in European nobility, protocol, and archival research, their role is not to opine, but to document. Their focus remains on accuracy, historical integrity, and the preservation of events and individuals whose significance might otherwise go unrecorded.

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