Eurozone crisis live: Italian political deadlock sends markets tumbling

Silvio Berlusconi has ruled out forming a coalition with Mario Monti, the technocratic PM who took power when Berlusconi was ousted in November 2011.
In a TV interview Berlusconi, whose centre-right coalition was narrowly defeated in the lower Italian parliament, said that all parties need to make sacrifices.
Asked if he'd be prepared to work with Pier Luigi's centre-left Democratic Party, Berlusconi said:

Italy cannot be left ungoverned, we have to reflect.

Berlusconi conceded that the centre-left had won the battle in the lower house (last night his party had argued that the race was too lose to call). He also argued that Monti's weak performance showed that Italians would not accept his unpopular austerity measures.