https://tinyurl.com/w99t2kh https://imgur.com/thzD0mK 编按：右边长鼻子是保守党强森、左边戴眼镜的是工党柯宾、 中间在笑的是《经济学人》支持的自民党Swinson Britain’s nightmare before Christmas 圣诞节前英国人的梦靥 A divided country faces an election that will tear it still further apart 一个已遭撕裂的国家正面临一场深化对立的选举 British voters keep being called to the polls—and each time the options before them are worse. Labour and the Conservatives, once parties of the centre-left and -right, have steadily grown further apart in the three elections of the past four years. Next week voters face their starkest choice yet, between Boris Johnson, whose Tories promise a hard Brexit, and Jeremy Corbyn, whose Labour Party plans to “rewrite the rules of the economy” along radical socialist lines. Mr Johnson runs the most unpopular new government on record; Mr Corbyn is the most unpopular leader of the opposition. On Friday the 13th, unlucky Britons will wake to find one of these horrors in charge. 英国人这几年来不断地投票，且选项一次比一次更糟。工党跟保守党；一个曾是中间偏左 另一则是偏右的政党，在过去四年理的三个选举里面越来越分歧。下周，英国人将面对他 们有史以来最困难的抉择，保守党的代表强森(Boris Johnson)承诺要来一个“坚定的” 脱欧，而工党的代表柯宾(Jeremy Corbyn)打算以激进的社会主义政策来重整经济。强森 正领导着史上最不受欢迎的执政党，而柯宾是史上最不受欢迎的反对党领袖，等下周五不 幸的英国人醒来的时候就会知道这两个人谁会成为新首相了。 At the last election, two years and a political era ago, we regretted the drift to the extremes. Today’s manifestos go a lot further. In 2017 Labour was on the left of the European mainstream. Today it would seize 10% of large firms’ equity, to be held in funds paying out mostly to the exchequer rather than to the workers who are meant to be the beneficiaries. It would phase in a four-day week, supposedly with no loss of pay. The list of industries to be nationalised seems only to grow. Drug patents could be forcibly licensed. The bill for a rapid increase in spending would fall on the rich and companies, whose tax burden would go from the lowest in the g7 to the highest. It is an attempt to deal with 21st-century problems using policies that failed in the 20th. 上一次的选举，也就是两年前、一个政治周期前，我们曾对於走向极端的趋势感到遗憾， 但这次的政见看起来更糟。2017年时，工党跟欧洲主流比起来还算偏左，时至今日，他打 算以基金的方式持有大企业的股权，主要用来支付给国库，而非原本应该给劳工的福利。 它打算分阶段进行，首先是一周工作四天的政策，且薪资并不会因此此减少。预期被国有 化的产业名单似乎增加中，药物专利将来可能需经过政府批准，骤增的成本将由富人与企 业负担，而这可能使它们负担的税率从原本七国集团中最低变成最高。这就像打算用20世 纪失败的政策来解决21世纪的问题。 Nor has Mr Corbyn done anything to dampen concerns about his broader worldview. A critic of Western foreign policy and sympathiser with dictators in Iran and Venezuela who oppose it, he blamed nato for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Last year he suggested samples of a nerve agent used to poison a Russian former spy in Salisbury should be sent to Moscow, so Vladimir Putin could see if it was his. Under such a prime minister, Britain could not rely on receiving American intelligence. Nor has Mr Corbyn dealt with the anti-Semitism that has taken root in Labour on his watch. Some Remainers might swallow this as the price of a second Brexit referendum, which Mr Corbyn has at last promised. We have long argued for such a vote. Yet Mr Corbyn’s ruinous plans at home and bankrupt views abroad mean that this newspaper cannot support Labour. 此外柯宾也没打算消除外界质疑他那”较宽广“的国际观，他经常批评西方世界的外交政 策，且不时为那些与反美如伊朗跟委内瑞拉的独裁者发声，他还认为北约要为2014的乌克 兰事件负责。去年发生俄罗斯间谍毒杀案时，柯宾就表示应将那些神经毒素的样本送去莫 斯科，这样普丁就可以来看看是不是他的。假设让他担任首相了话，英国就不用指望美国 会提供情报了。柯宾也被认为放任党内的反犹风气深化。对於以上种种，许多留欧派人士 认为是第二次脱欧公投的代价，起码柯宾有承诺。然而，基於柯宾那所费不赀的内政政策 以及空洞的外交政策所以本报无法支持工党。 The Conservatives, too, have grown scarier since 2017. Mr Johnson has ditched the Brexit deal negotiated by Theresa May and struck a worse one, in effect lopping off Northern Ireland so that Britain can leave the European Union’s customs union. The public are so sick of the whole fiasco that his promise to “get Brexit done” wins votes. But he would do no such thing (see article). After Britain had left the eu early next year, the hard work of negotiating a trade agreement would begin. Mr Johnson says he would do this by the end of 2020 or leave without one. No-deal is thus still on the table—and a real prospect, since getting a deal in less than a year looks hard. The best estimates suggest that leaving without a deal would make average incomes 8% lower than they would otherwise have been after ten years. 而保守党自从2017开始的走向越来越令人担忧，强森不采梅伊版本的脱欧方案，而弄出了 一个更糟的：将北爱的部分分割处理，好让整个英国可以脱离欧盟关税同盟。假设明年初 真的脱欧了话，那艰难的贸易协议谈判将就此展开，强森承诺将在2020年底完成，或者无 协议脱欧。所以，无协议脱欧仍是强森的选项之一，而且这是很可能发生的，因为在一年 内要跟欧盟达成协议并非易事。如果无协议脱欧，"最乐观"的统计显示英国的平均收入将 会比没有脱欧十年後低8%。 Brexit is not the only problem with Mr Johnson’s new-look Tories. He has purged moderates and accelerated the shift from an economically and socially liberal party into an economically interventionist and culturally conservative one. Angling for working-class, Leave-voting seats in the north, he has proposed extra state aid, buy-British government procurement and a sketchy tax-and-spending plan that does not add up. Also, he has absorbed the fatal lesson of the Brexit campaign: that there is no penalty for lying or breaking the rules. He promised not to suspend Parliament, then did; he promised not to extend the Brexit talks, then did. This chicanery corrodes trust in democracy. Like Mr Corbyn he has normalised prejudice, by displaying his own and failing to investigate it in his party (both men are thought racist by 30% of voters). For all these reasons this newspaper cannot support the Conservatives. 对於强森的保守党来说，脱欧议题并不是唯一的问题。强森不止搞定党内温和派，还将一 个原本采取自由主义的政党转成一个支持政府干预且支持保守文化的党。为了要迎合那些 在北部的劳工、脱欧支持的选票，他承诺将增加政府补助。购买国货的采购案和草率的税收与预算计画 是不合理的。尤有甚者，他还学了当时脱欧阵营犯下的致命错误：认为说谎或者破坏游戏 规则是不会受罚的。他承诺不会解散国会，但他做了；他承诺不会延长脱欧协议，但他做 了，这种诈欺行为伤害了民主政治，就好像柯宾的正当化自己的偏见，从他的言行以及不 调查党内反犹风气就可看得出来(这两个人都被30%的选民认为是种族主义者)，基於以上 这些原因所以本报无法支持保守党。 That leaves a low bar for the Liberal Democrats, and they clear it. They, too, have become more extreme since we backed them in 2017. Under a new leader, Jo Swinson, they have gone beyond the idea of a second referendum for an irresponsible promise to reverse Brexit unilaterally. This has deservedly backfired. Yet their economic approach—a moderate increase in spending, paid for by broad-based tax increases—is the most sensible of the main parties, and is the only one to be honest about the cost of an ageing society. On climate change and social policy they strike the best balance between ambition and realism. As last time如同上次选举一样, they are the only choice for anyone who rejects both the hard Brexit of the Conservatives and the hard-left plans of Labour. 两大党诸多的缺陷给了自民党夹缝求生的机会，自民党也明白。自从《经济学人》在2017 年支持他们之後，他们也同样变得更极端，在新的党魁Jo Swinson领导下，他们已不再坚 持推动二次公投的的诺言，这当然招致批评，然而他们的财经政策，利用广泛的税基来适 度地增加预算，是所有主要政党中最明智的，而且他们也是最诚实面对老年化社会成本议 题的政党。在气候变迁跟社会政策上他们在现实与理想中取得最佳平衡。就如同上次选举 一样，他们是那些反对"强硬脱欧"保守党或者左倾工党的最佳选择。 Yet they will not win. So why back them? The practical reason is to restrain whoever ends up in Downing Street. Voters worry that backing the Lib Dems plays into Mr Corbyn’s hands, but our modelling suggests that votes and seats would come fairly evenly from both parties (see Graphic detail). Mr Corbyn is preparing to govern with the Scottish National Party, which would back most of his programme in return for another independence referendum. Having more Lib Dems would check his plans. Likewise, they would rein in Mr Johnson. Some Tories cling to the hope that if he wins a big majority he will drop the populist act and rediscover his liberal instincts. They are deluded. If he wins the Brexit-backing seats he is targeting with his promises of more state aid, do they expect him to switch back to the fantasy of building Singapore-on-Thames? The opposite is true: the bigger the Tory majority, the more drastic the party ’s transformation. 虽然他们还是没办法赢，那为什麽要支持他们?最合理的理由就是他们可以制衡将来的政 府，不少的人担心支持自民党会让柯宾得利，但是根据我们的模型资料显示，本次选举的 席次会平均分给两大党上，柯宾正打算与苏格兰民族党组成联合政府，该党打算支持大部 分柯宾的政策以换取第二次北爱独立公投的机会。 所以如果自民党有更多席次，能更有力地监督他的政策，同样地当然也会限制强森的。一 些保守党的支持者还在认为假如强森赢得大选，他将会放弃那些民粹法案，重拾古典自由 主义政策，那些人被骗了，因为如果强森了话他将聚焦在实现他那"更多政府津贴"的政见 上，难道他们期待他回过头来采用新加坡模式吗?有件事倒是真的：保守党赢越多，该党 的改变就会越大。 The principled reason is that the Lib Dems are closest to the liberalism on which this newspaper was founded. A strong Lib Dem showing would signal to voters who favour open markets and a liberal society that the centre is alive. The past few years have shown why Parliament needs good people such as Sam Gyimah, who left the Tories because of their extremism, and Chuka Umunna, who left Labour because of theirs. The course of Brexit has been repeatedly changed for the better by independent-minded mps making the running. If Britain withdraws from the eu in January, the Lib Dem mps will be among the best advocates of a deep trade deal and the strongest opponents of no-deal. There is no good outcome to this nightmare of an election. But for the centre to hold is the best hope for Britain. 本报之所以支持自民党的一个合理理由是因为该党跟本党创报精神最接近，假设自民党赢 越多其实就是告诉公众，自由市场以及一个自由的社会的想法在中间选民仍非少数。从过 去几年也看得出来国会缺乏像Sam Gyimah跟Chuka Umunna那样的政治家，前者认为保守党 越来越极端而脱党，後者同样认为工党任来越极端而脱党。脱欧的过程因为那些较有自主 意识的国会议员而变得更好。 假设英国真的在明年一月脱欧，自民党将扮演着督处政府跟欧盟协议以及强烈反对无协议 脱欧的一方。这场选举对英国人来说不会有甚麽好的下场，维持中和派是对英国最明智的 选择。 This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Britain’s nightmare before Christmas" --

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