Berlusconi Vows to Fight on, Will Remain Party Leader

Was expelled from parliament

Silvio Berlusconi was humiliatingly thrown out of the Italian parliament today, but in characteristic style, he came out fighting, railing against his adversaries and vowing to remain at the heart of the Italian political scene.

The billionaire was stripped of his seat in the Senate, bringing to an ignominious end a tumultuous parliamentary career that began in the early 1990s when he first burst onto the political scene, promising to bring Thatcherite reforms to Italy's sclerotic economy and replace a discredited political class.