His real power lies not in arms but in secrets and it is with these secrets that he blackmails those with power -

His real power lies not in arms but in secrets, and it is with these secrets that he blackmails those with power – politicians and bankers – and remains free. They don’t want to arrest him because he knows a lot of very inconvenient things.”It’s a curious thing: the person taking the Mafia into the 21st century is an old man Keeping everything secret was the way of the past. Provenzano is creating the Cosa Nostra of the post-massacre period in continuity with the past, the secret past. He has succeeded in reconciling post-modernity with the archaic nature of the old Mafia.”Palazzolo believes that Provenzano, by turning his back on violence, lowering the formerly crippling protection charges and keeping a tight grip on the organisation, has restored the Mafia to its former strength. But the greatest, most sinister secret of his success is that Sicilians at every level now desire the Mafia to keep up the good work.For an elderly, semi-literate gangster constantly on the move, it’s a remarkable achievement.

But it’s not his achievement alone: it has been facilitated over the past three years by a creeping change in the Italian political climate. After the Falcone and Borsellino killings, Italy became a leader in the fight against organised crime: it was in Palermo in 2000 that Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, signed the world’s first convention against organised crime. Today, Italy is a leader no more.There are many straws in the wind. For example, there has been Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s campaign against the judiciary, calling them names, dismissing them as communists and lunatics. There have been the finance minister’s amnesties to illegal builders and tax-evaders.

Most striking of all was the remark by Berlusconi’s minister for infrastructure, Pietro Lunardi, in August 2001: Italy, Lunardi said, had to “learn to live with the Mafia; everyone should deal with the crime problem in their own way”.Orlando says: “To say what Lunardi said is perhaps not a crime, but it is worse than a crime – it produces the culture of illegality It means that legality is an option. Do you like a car with a radio or without a radio? Mineral water with gas or without? Do you like democracy with legality or without legality? The new Mafia does not need weapons. They just need ministers who speak like this.”‘Cosa Nostra: a History of the Sicilian Mafia’ by John Dickie is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£20). The interests of the morality-toting Bush administration are not exactly in harmony with those of the United States’ 4,000-odd strip clubs. And now the clubs are doing something about it, by registering their patrons to vote in between floor shows and agitating openly to boot the President out of the White House in November. “That’s the way I look at it.” The odd thing is that the administration, while making no secret of its disapproval, has launched no specific crackdown against strip clubs.True, pornography was one of the items on Mr Ashcroft’s priority list when he came into office in 2001 – a list also notable for its omission of counter- terrorism.