英国“政变”：风水轮流转？ | 纽约时报
Get Ready for Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn
Prime Minister Theresa May being handed a mock job dismissal form during her speech at the Conservative Party conference on Wednesday. Joe Giddens/Press Association, via Associated Press
LONDON — If you wanted to write a spoof of Britain’s Conservatives, you’d struggle to do a better job than the real version at the party’s half-empty annual conference this week in Manchester.
伦敦。如果你想黑一把英国保守党，很难做得比本周该党在曼彻斯特与会者仅半的年度会议更加出色。
Things hit such train-wreck levels that even the stage fell apart — during a speech by Prime Minister Theresa May, the Conservatives’ leader, letters fell off the party’s latest lackluster slogan behind her. That was just the final slapstick touch to a disastrous address, during which Mrs. May struggled with a fading voice and a spluttering cough, and was pranked by a comedian who handed her a fake P45 — a termination of employment notice.
情况简直惨不忍赌，连舞台都垮掉了——保守党领袖、首相特雷莎·梅演讲时，她背后不得人心的保守党口号竟有单词掉落下来。那只是她糟糕演讲的最后闹剧，演讲中梅太太气若游丝，咳嗽不停，还有一个搞笑的出来捣乱，递给她一份伪造的P45离职通知。
It was a fitting close to a conference that highlighted the extent to which the Conservatives are in free-fall, and the degree to which Mrs. May’s days as party leader are numbered.
这是一场名实相称的会议闭幕，凸显出保守党一落千丈，梅太太做党魁的日子屈指可数。
That all stood in stark contrast to Labour’s conference at the seaside town of Brighton a week earlier. There, party leaders were met with rock-star receptions and standing ovations. Packed meetings focused on the policies Labour should first roll out in government, while references to the party leader Jeremy Corbyn as “the next prime minister” sounded not just like peppy campaign talk but a tangible scenario. Events organized through Momentum, the grass-roots group of Corbyn supporters, routinely saw snaking queues. Left-wing politics had the buzz of a music festival and the effervescence of a political force that is tantalizingly close to power.
一切与一周前在海滨城市布莱顿的工党会议可谓天差地别。在布莱顿，工党领袖受到摇滚明星般的欢迎，全体听众站立鼓掌。人头攒动的会议研究了工党执政后首先要推行的政策，现在说党魁杰里米·科尔宾要成为“下一任首相”不仅是劲头十足的大选言论，那堪称近在咫尺的事。科尔宾支持者组成的草根团体“动能”组织的活动，参加者总能排成长龙。左翼政治像音乐节一样欢腾，是一种冒着泡的政治力量，迫不及待地要夺取权力。
This state of affairs isn’t just down to Labour’s surge during the snap election in June, when the party unexpectedly secured nearly 40 percent of the vote with a hope-filled, progressive platform under Mr. Corbyn’s leadership. The Conservatives are in chaos, having lost their majority and mandate in the election, which Mrs. May needlessly called and then bungled. The party is a squabbling mess, divided over Brexit negotiations and riven by leadership battles. Mrs. May’s position is fatally compromised, but there is no viable replacement in sight, a toxic situation plunging a party once known for ruthless discipline into disarray.
事态不只因工党在六月的提前选举中一飞冲天，在科尔宾先生的领导下，用充满希望的进步主义议程，出人意料地揽下百分之四十的选票。保守党自身却一片混乱，在选举中丢掉多数党地位和单独组阁权，梅太太本就是自寻烦恼，结果也搞了个一塌糊涂。保守党吵成一团，因退欧谈判而各立阵营，因权力争斗而分道扬镳。梅太太地位大打折扣，却无人可以代之，这一糟糕情况让一度以纪律严明著称的党派陷入混乱。
Polls suggest that an election held today could put Labour in power — and make clear that voters are ready for the party’s vision of economic redistribution. All of this has put the Conservatives into a reactive crouch: witness the conference speech by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Phillip Hammond, dedicated to tirades against Labour’s economic plans, while Mrs. May tried, unconvincingly, to portray her party as concerned with social justice. The Conservatives are now trotting out policy proposals that look like halfhearted raids from the Labour platform — diluted versions that lack credibility.
民调显示，要是现在就举行大选，工党就会当权，选民准备好接纳工党对经济再分配的设想。所有这些都将保守党置于被动应战的不利境地：看看财政大臣菲利普·哈蒙德的大会演讲，不过是声讨工党的经济计划，梅太太试图说保守党关切社会公正，那难以令人信服。保守党现在提出的政策建议看起来倒像是剽窃了工党议程，只是半心半意，不过是难以让人信服的注水版本。
Given all of this, Labour is busy ensuring it is taken seriously as a prospective government. That much is already starting to happen, as companies scrambled to attend the Labour conference and business representatives lined up to meet with the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. As Mr. McDonnell laid out in a conference event, his team has met with “various people, asset managers and others, quietly and privately,” and also is looking at what might happen in the event of the party’s victory and “war gaming” possible scenarios, including a run on the pound or capital flight.
尽管如此，工党仍要让人相信它在认真考虑要接管政府，好在已着手进行了，各公司争先恐后地参加工党大会，业界代表排队会见影子财长约翰·麦克唐奈尔。麦克唐奈尔先生在大会上说，他的团队会见了“各界人士，还有基金经理等等，都是在私下里进行的”，他们还探讨了假使工党获胜该如何应对，并“模拟”了多种可能情形，包括英镑大跌或资本外逃等。
That revelation led to a few headlines screaming that even Labour thinks it will crash the economy — and cheap shots to that effect from the Conservatives. But it may just be sensible stress-testing, itself designed to allay concerns. As it turns out, while businesses predictably wince at Labour’s plans to increase corporate taxes, party advisers say many in the business sector welcome their commitment to investing in infrastructure, especially technology. Meanwhile, an added component potentially turning businesses toward Labour is the May government’s disastrous handling of Brexit, widely seen as likely to cause major economic damage.
透露这些信息让一些报刊头条尖叫，说连工党自己都认为会让经济崩溃，正合了保守党的恶意中伤。但那只是合情合理的压力测试，本身旨在缓解担忧。结果，尽管业界对工党计划增加企业所得税皱起眉头，该党顾问称许多企业界人士欢迎其对基础设施，尤其是技术领域，进行投资的承诺。同时，另一个因素可能让企业界投向工党，那就是梅政府对退欧问题的糟糕处理，很多人认为那可能导致重大的经济损害。
But Labour’s plans to restructure the economy represent a break with a neoliberal consensus of the past 30 years. This shift does have popular support, yet it might conceivably face institutional resistance. Britain’s civil service, which has met with the Labour leadership and which is democratically committed to political neutrality, could respond to populist left policies with a technocratic disposition toward continuity and slow, incremental change.
但工党重构经济的计划是同过去三十年新自由主义共识的一种决裂。这种变化有民众支持，但必然遭遇体制的抵制。英国的公职部门同工党领导人打过交道，他们秉承政治中立，对民粹主义左翼政策可能给予技术专家式的回应，倾向于延续旧制和缓慢渐进性的变革。
While shadow ministers, some of them relatively inexperienced, are being prepped in working the levers of government so as not to get bogged down by bureaucracy, Labour advisers say they are looking toward countries such as Denmark or Germany for advice on implementing progressive policies.
部分影子大臣相对经验不足，他们在预习如何玩转政府，不至于陷入官僚主义泥潭之中；另一边，工党顾问表示，他们盼望着向丹麦或德国等国取经，学些如何推行进步主义政策。
But a key emollient in all this needs to be popular buy-in. Mr. Corbyn’s stated intent to democratize Labour is already taking shape. The parliamentary party is now in a feedback loop with its grass-roots: unleashing thousands of enthusiastic campaigners at street level, while declaring that “another world is possible” from the party leader’s podium.
但所有措施中关键的润滑露是人民要买账。科尔宾提出要让工党民主化，现在正在推行之中。这个参政党和基层形成了回馈闭环：在大街上投放了数千名热情的竞选宣传员，在党魁的讲坛上发出口号，宣称“另一个世界是可能的”。
In Brighton, over a thousand delegates — many of them newly elected — decided which issues would be debated and saw measures that they approved on one day appear in the leader’s speech on the next. Mr. McDonnell suggested key policies such as re-nationalization could be planned in consultation with trade unions, civil society, consumers and local authorities — providing not just extra accountability, but also another layer of legitimacy.
在布莱顿，一千多名党代表决定该讨论哪些话题，今天批准的措施第二天就出现在领导人的演讲中，很多党代表都是刚刚当选的。麦克唐奈尔先生提出，再国有化等重大政策应该与工会、公民社会、消费者和当地政府磋商制定，不仅让各方负起责任，还要合法。
Of course, none of this straightforward and expectations should be managed in preparation for the long haul. Labour’s conference, while jubilant, did not feel complacent, though that is something to guard against. So, too, will be the pressure on Labour to tone down the platform that has made it so popular in the first place. Meanwhile, the regressive forces that helped push the Brexit vote have not vanished and could be reanimated by the right.
当然，这种与民接触及回应民众期待的做法难以长久。工党大会喜气洋洋，却不盲目乐观，尽管也不能高兴得太早。要求工党放低调门，不要一开始就大受欢迎，这种压力也是如此。另一方面，推动退欧投票的反动力量并未消失，还会被右翼动员起来。
Still, if Labour’s policies are, as Mr. Corbyn says, now “mainstream,” if the center ground has shifted, if the unfettered free market has at last been publicly nailed as the source of division and hardship, and if the Conservatives keep free-falling — well, then it looks like the British left, after decades in the fringes, may finally have its moment.
还有，如果像科尔宾先生所言，工党政策现在成了“主流”，如果大风向变了，如果不受制约的自由市场最终被人们认为导致分裂和困苦，如果保守党继续一落千丈——好吧，看起来英国左翼在沦落边缘数十年后，终于要得势了。