When Silvio Berlusconi went to Viareggio this week to “take charge” after a liquid gas explosion that killed 16 people, he clearly expected to be given a hero’s welcome.

Instead, he was greeted with boos, whistles and shouts of “go home”, “buffoon” and “shame on you”. There were even one or two isolated cries of “paedophile” and “whoremonger”.

Mr Berlusconi prides himself on his rapport with the man in the street. He cancelled a state trip to Libya yesterday to offer comfort — and state aid — to the homeless and injured at Viareggio.

But something has changed in the two months since the scandals broke over his private life and he was clearly disconcerted to find a crowd, ranging from students to pensioners, shouting abuse at him.

The whistles and boos started a month ago, when he attended Day of the Republic celebrations at the Presidential palace in Rome, and have continued at other events since then.

The shouts and insults, says Massimo Franco, a leading commentator, are a sign of “deep tensions” with only a week to go to the G8 summit. The overriding impression is of a Prime Minister engaged in a whirl of “hands-on activity but who is still dogged by problems”.

Mr Berlusconi’s response, despite a call this week by President Napolitano for a truce in “polemics” in the run-up to G8, has been to revert to ill-tempered attacks on “communists and plotters”.

The protests, he said yesterday, were down to personal envy and political hate and were all organised by the Left, “which is the enemy of Italy”.

This, Mr Franco says, suggests “frustration on the part of a Prime Minister who cannot see a way out”.

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