Premier Silvio Berlusconi accused Italy's centre-left opposition on Monday of having whipped up a smear and hate campaign against him to try to muster votes for this weekend's European parliament elections.
Speaking on a state-run Rai radio talk show, Berlusconi compared the centre left's values to those of Novella 2000, Italy's best-known gossip magazine.
''I think we've really hit rock bottom'', said the premier, referring to an ongoing flap over his personal life following a public divorce feud with his wife Veronica Lario who has accused him of consorting with minors.
The Italian left-leaning dailies have repeatedly urged the premier to provide information on his relationship with 18-year-old would-be showgirl Noemi Letizia after she was quoted calling him 'papi' (daddy) and admitted she had received an expensive necklace for her birthday last month.
The premier has gone on television to deny there was anything ''spicy'' in his relationship with Letizia and he has since has categorically denied ''steamy or more than steamy relationships'' with teenagers after it emerged he had invited young girls to parties at his Sardinian villa.
During the weekend, the premier's lawyer got an injunction to block the publication of some 700 photographs which reportedly show that dozens of young women were invited to his villa.
Berlusconi told the RAI interviewer that the opposition was raising a ruckus over his private life to cover ''the fact they don't have a programme''.
''The left-leaning dailies have covered up the (opposition's) lack of a programme with gossip and calumny''.
''The centre-left has nothing to offer, it can only ride on the wave of calumnies and violate other people's privacy. I'm sure this campaign of envy and hatred will boomerang against them because I see that Italians who support us have a clear idea of what's happening and are still closer to me''.
Nevertheless, the premier has come under fire from the Catholic Church which has expressed dismay over the divorce spat and reports that he planned to field former starlets for the June EP elections.
''Leaders should largely be judged on their achievements,'' the Catholic daily Avvenire wrote recently, ''but the 'stuff' of a leader, his style and the values with which he concretely fills his life, are not inconsequential. They cannot be''.
It called for ''a premier who, with sobriety, is able to be the mirror of his country's soul''.
But Berlusconi told the interviewer he had nothing to explain, stressing that he had ''already cleared things up''.
''Showgirls? Not true. Teenager? ''Oh, come on!'','' said the premier.
A sentence by a Milan court who found his former corporate lawyer, Briton David Mills, guilty of perjury was based on ''lies'', said the premier.
''These are pure and simple falsehoods which will backfire against those who sparked them,'' he added.
In February a Milan court sentenced Mills to four and a half years in prison for taking a $600,000 bribe.
Judge Nicoletta Gandus, who the premier says is leftist, said in written motivation for the verdict last month that the lawyer had acted ''as a false witness...to allow Silvio Berlusconi and his Fininvest group impunity from the charges or, at least, to keep their huge profits''.
The premier, who was removed from the trial under a new immunity law approved by his government, has said repeatedly that Gandus is biased against him.
Both Mills and Berlusconi deny wrongdoing and the lawyer has said he will appeal the verdict.
