Silvio Berlusconi, whose state funeral took place yesterday (Wednesday) in Milan, was the first modern populist. He was the media tycoon who became a politician in order to take back control of his country from the Establishment on behalf of the people.

The Italians called him Il Cavaliere (The Knight). I called him Silvio il Magnifico.

He created a brand of politics that decades later would become a driving force in America and Europe and be called populism. Italians voted for him in their droves. He was dead rich and loved by the dirt poor. He spoke their language: he loved beautiful football and beautiful women, And he hated tax and red tape and fines and the big bad state. His favourite book was In Praise of Folly (1509) by Erasmus of Rotterdam.

No other Italian politician in the history of the Italian Republic, founded after the defeat of fascism in 1945, got as many votes as he did, or was prime minister as long. He was prime minister four times. These are similarities between him and the quintessential populist de nos jours Donald Trump.

Like Trump, he was a tycoon and womaniser. But unlike Trump, he was molto simpatico. The Donald grabs women by the pussy, Silvio, a former cruise ship crooner, seduced them with songs and gifts. But both are on the side of the silent majority that is fed up being silent.

Berlusconi entered politics in 1994 to save Italy – as he put it – from communism. Italy had the largest communist party in Europe outside the Soviet Bloc which had never quite won power nationally. But a judicial revolution against endemic political corruption had destroyed the other main parties.

Despite the collapse of Soviet communism, Italy’s communists now called post-communistz stood poised to take over Italy. Berlusconi launched a party, Forza Italia, and two months later won the election. His football club AC Milan then won the Champion’ League.

From then on, Berlusconi was hounded by Italy’s notoriously politicized judges known as “toghe rosse” (red cloaks). He faced around 80 criminal trials over 30 years which cost him he said €1 billion in legal fees. Yet he was only convicted once - for tax fraud - by a company that he was not in charge of at the time whereas those who were, were acquitted. That led to a five year ban form politics. Trump too, of course, is now the target of a concerted judicial assault.

There are also similarities with former British prime minister Boris Johnson.

In 2003, at the height of Berlusconi’ power, I went with Boris – then editor of The Spectator – to his summer palace in Sardinia to interview him. Berlusconi told us: Italian fascist dictator Mussolini did not kill his opponents but exiled them to the islands (largely true); and Italy’s judges are “anthropologically different” from normal people (largely true).

These were truthes that absolutely cannot be said in Italy. They were front page news for two weeks. Berlusconi had to call a press conference to defend himself. The signori inglesi had got him drunk on champagne – he explained – which is why he told us what he had said,

It was a lie, he had given us only iced lemon tea.

Does it matter? Not, necessarily.

For as I told Boris – no stranger to lying either - at the time: Berlusconi reminds me of the tragic hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby about a tycoon whose wealth is ill-gotten but whose dream is beautiful. As the narrator Nick Carraway tells Gatsby at the end of the book: “They’re a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.”