译者 炫耀至极
THE economy is floundering—yet the coalition government is persevering with its unpopular public-spending cuts. Relations between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, its two constituent parties, have degenerated from respectful union to surly cohabitation. Some of its most radical initiatives, such as health-care reform, have been botched. Propitious circumstances for the opposition, you might think.
尽管英国经济低迷，但是联合政府仍然不遗余力地推行其不受欢迎的公共开始削减计划。组成联合政府的保守党和自由民主党之间的关系已经从令人尊敬的联合执政变成了现在的沆瀣一气。他们提出的一些彻底改革措施，比如医疗改革，都没有兑现。或许有人认为，现在该是反对派得势的时候了。
Apparently not. Labour, whose annual conference takes place next week, has made some progress in the polls since last year’s general election, but less than the government’s travails might suggest. Nor, under its struggling leader Ed Miliband, has the party exerted much influence in the ongoing debates over how to resuscitate Britain’s economy and reform its public services. With one exception: by opportunistically swapping Labour’s longstanding sycophancy to Rupert Murdoch for excoriation of him, Mr Miliband scored a hit over the phone-hacking scandal. He should learn from that small victory and be more willing to ditch the policies of the past.
很明显，答案是否定的。虽然工党下周就将举行年会，并且民调支持率自去年普选以来有所上升，但是还远没有到能够重新执政的时候。而且工党领袖埃德·米利班德自身尚且立足未稳，那么在他的领导下，工党也没有在如何重振英国经济和改革公共服务这样的大辩论中有着多少的影响力。但是有一件事情是例外：由于找准机会与传媒巨头鲁伯特·默多克划清了界限并且转而谴责默多克，米利班德在窃听丑闻一事上还是赚回了一些分数。他应该从这场小小的胜利中学到一些东西并且摒弃以往的一些政策。
That must begin with the economy—in particular, the previous Labour government’s contribution to the fiscal deficit that the coalition is trying to tame. To restore the economic credibility that Labour lost after the financial crisis, next week Mr Miliband should finally admit that the former administration (of which he was a member) overspent in the fat years before the credit crunch: not just that it used some money “unwisely” (his preferred formulation) but that it spent too much.
首先还是要从经济着手，特别是财政赤字方面。现任的联合政府正在试图减轻上届工党政府留下的财政赤字。金融危机之后，民众对工党在经济方面的表现失去了信心，而为了能够挽回失去的信心，下周米利班德应该承认上届政府（他也是成员之一）在信贷危机前的那些经济好的年份确实开支过大：不仅仅是做出了一些所谓“不明智的”（米利班德的描述）政府开支，而是政府开支的太多了。
And Mr Miliband should be clearer about how he would meet his party’s avowed goal of halving the deficit during this parliament—a target that, in theory, is almost as fiscally ambitious as the government’s. Ed Balls, his Treasury spokesman and a defiantly unapologetic veteran of the previous government, might not like all that. Tough. Until Labour manages this intellectual shift, its views on how to revive the economy now are liable to go unheeded. That is unfortunate: the VAT cut that Mr Balls is proposing is not the best way to go about it—stimulating consumption is less of a priority than providing finance to small business and persuading big ones to invest—but, at a worrying time, other ideas would be welcome.
米利班德海需要更明白的是他要如何在本届国会任期中完成工党宣称的维持赤字水平的目标，这一财政目标和联合政府的目标一样激进。他的财政政策发言人，上一届政府成员埃德·鲍尔斯是一个自负而且死不认错的人，鲍尔斯或许不太会赞同所有的这些政策。工党处境艰难。除非他们进行策略上的转变，否则他们现在关于如何提振经济的政策将被人们所忽视。不幸的是：鲍尔斯提出的增值税削减措施不是最好的方式，促进消费还不如给小企业增加信贷，说服大公司增加它们的投资，在一个如此焦虑的时期，除此之外（指增值税削减和刺激消费）的措施或许将会受到欢迎。
The same goes for the public services. Mr Miliband should ditch his party’s myopic opposition to the coalition’s plans for more plurality in schools and health care. This reversal ought to be easier than the necessary flip-flop over the deficit, since many of these policies—such as new “free” schools in the state system, and more competition among state-funded hospitals—were once Labour ideas, before the party foolishly ceded them. Mr Miliband currently sounds like a man who opposes virtually all reform; if he embraced the sensible bits, his criticisms of the botched parts, such as the chaotic introduction of health-care commissioning boards, would carry more weight.
在公共服务上，情形也是一样。米利班德的工党应该放弃对联合政府教育和医疗多元化计划的反对。这种改变比大幅削减赤字要容易的多，因为联合政府的许多政策都曾经是工党提出来的，诸如新的“免费”教育系统，加大政府资助的医院之间的竞争力度，而工党却在之后愚蠢地抛弃了这些政策。最近，米利班德听起来像是一个反对任何改革的人；如果他变得明智一点，他饱受指责的那些措施，比如混乱的医疗改革计划，或许会更让人信服。
There is a big difference between opportunism over phone-hacking and fessing up over the deficit: whereas the former pleased Mr Miliband’s party, the latter would rile and embarrass it. So, alas, would a more nuanced view on public-service reform, since much of the party never signed up to the Blairite agenda. Taking internal flak, however, is a key element in an opposition’s rehabilitation, as both David Cameron and Tony Blair knew. To his credit, Mr Miliband has criticised the trade unions (who helped to win him the party leadership) for the strikes some staged this summer. Next week he should dare to make himself much more unpopular on the left.
在电话窃听丑闻事件中见风使舵和承认造成了严重赤字有着很大的不同：前者会让工党感到高兴，而后者只会让工党感到难堪。所以，哎，大概工党估计还是会在公共服务这方面作小的政策调整，毕竟党派内部很多人都不会走布莱尔的老路。（勇敢的）接受批评是消除反对意见的重要策略，大卫·卡梅伦和托尼·布莱尔都深知这一点。值得表扬的是，米利班德谴责工会煽动了这个夏天的多场罢工，而工会正是当初支持他获得工党领导地位的重要力量。下周，他应该敢于让自己在左翼人士中更加不受欢迎。
Hypocrisy requires backbone
伪善是需要骨气的
Almost four years before the next election is due, Mr Miliband need not have a detailed manifesto. But he should at least have a voice in these crucial debates. At the moment, he does not. By swallowing his pride and breaking with some of Labour’s recent past, he would earn one. That would be good for his party, even if it doesn’t realise it, and for his country.
距离下一次选举还有差不多四年，米利班德现在还不需要对其政策作出详尽的勾勒。但是他至少应该在这场残酷的论战中发出自己的声音。此时此刻，他还没有任何动作。收起他的自负，和工党的过去决裂，他将获得的更多。这对工党，对整个英国来说，都是一件好事情，虽然工党上下现在还没有认识到这一点。
本文由自动聚合程序取自网络，内容和观点不代表数字时代立场
