Film featuring Italian ex-PM circulated on social media as meat lobby calls on advertisers to boycott his TV channelsFormer prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has infuriated Italy’s meat industry by joining a vegetarian campaign and “adopting” five lambs that would have been butchered for Easter. A video by the Italian League in Defence of Animals and the Environment, showing Berlusconi cuddling, kissing and feeding the lambs with a baby’s bottle, was circulated widely on social media over the weekend. The 80-year-old former prime minister was filmed in his parkland estate in front of a sign saying “Defend life, choose a vegetarian Easter,” while a scrolling message urged viewers to “Be like him. Several newspapers reported last year that Berlusconi had become a vegetarian. Berlusconi has worn a pacemaker for a decade and underwent open-heart surgery in June last year to replace a defective aortic valve.

Source: The Guardian April 10, 2017 15:57 UTC