https://tinyurl.com/w99t2kh
https://imgur.com/thzD0mK
編按：右邊長鼻子是保守黨強森、左邊戴眼鏡的是工黨柯賓、
中間在笑的是《經濟學人》支持的自民黨Swinson
Britain’s nightmare before Christmas
聖誕節前英國人的夢靨
A divided country faces an election that will tear it still further apart
一個已遭撕裂的國家正面臨一場深化對立的選舉
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.
英國人這幾年來不斷地投票，且選項一次比一次更糟。工黨跟保守黨；一個曾是中間偏左
另一則是偏右的政黨，在過去四年理的三個選舉裡面越來越分歧。下週，英國人將面對他
們有史以來最困難的抉擇，保守黨的代表強森(Boris Johnson)承諾要來一個“堅定的”
脫歐，而工黨的代表柯賓(Jeremy Corbyn)打算以激進的社會主義政策來重整經濟。強森
正領導著史上最不受歡迎的執政黨，而柯賓是史上最不受歡迎的反對黨領袖，等下週五不
幸的英國人醒來的時候就會知道這兩個人誰會成為新首相了。
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.
上一次的選舉，也就是兩年前、一個政治週期前，我們曾對於走向極端的趨勢感到遺憾，
但這次的政見看起來更糟。2017年時，工黨跟歐洲主流比起來還算偏左，時至今日，他打
算以基金的方式持有大企業的股權，主要用來支付給國庫，而非原本應該給勞工的福利。
它打算分階段進行，首先是一週工作四天的政策，且薪資並不會因此此減少。預期被國有
化的產業名單似乎增加中，藥物專利將來可能需經過政府批准，驟增的成本將由富人與企
業負擔，而這可能使它們負擔的稅率從原本七國集團中最低變成最高。這就像打算用20世
紀失敗的政策來解決21世紀的問題。
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.
此外柯賓也沒打算消除外界質疑他那”較寬廣“的國際觀，他經常批評西方世界的外交政
策，且不時為那些與反美如伊朗跟委內瑞拉的獨裁者發聲，他還認為北約要為2014的烏克
蘭事件負責。去年發生俄羅斯間諜毒殺案時，柯賓就表示應將那些神經毒素的樣本送去莫
斯科，這樣普丁就可以來看看是不是他的。假設讓他擔任首相了話，英國就不用指望美國
會提供情報了。柯賓也被認為放任黨內的反猶風氣深化。對於以上種種，許多留歐派人士
認為是第二次脫歐公投的代價，起碼柯賓有承諾。然而，基於柯賓那所費不貲的內政政策
以及空洞的外交政策所以本報無法支持工黨。
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.
而保守黨自從2017開始的走向越來越令人擔憂，強森不採梅伊版本的脫歐方案，而弄出了
一個更糟的：將北愛的部分分割處理，好讓整個英國可以脫離歐盟關稅同盟。假設明年初
真的脫歐了話，那艱難的貿易協議談判將就此展開，強森承諾將在2020年底完成，或者無
協議脫歐。所以，無協議脫歐仍是強森的選項之一，而且這是很可能發生的，因為在一年
內要跟歐盟達成協議並非易事。如果無協議脫歐，"最樂觀"的統計顯示英國的平均收入將
會比沒有脫歐十年後低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.
對於強森的保守黨來說，脫歐議題並不是唯一的問題。強森不止搞定黨內溫和派，還將一
個原本採取自由主義的政黨轉成一個支持政府干預且支持保守文化的黨。為了要迎合那些
在北部的勞工、脫歐支持的選票，他承諾將增加政府補助。購買國貨的採購案和草率的稅收與預算計畫
是不合理的。尤有甚者，他還學了當時脫歐陣營犯下的致命錯誤：認為說謊或者破壞遊戲
規則是不會受罰的。他承諾不會解散國會，但他做了；他承諾不會延長脫歐協議，但他做
了，這種詐欺行為傷害了民主政治，就好像柯賓的正當化自己的偏見，從他的言行以及不
調查黨內反猶風氣就可看得出來(這兩個人都被30%的選民認為是種族主義者)，基於以上
這些原因所以本報無法支持保守黨。
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如同上次選舉一樣, they are the only choice
for anyone who rejects both the hard Brexit of the Conservatives and the
hard-left plans of Labour.
兩大黨諸多的缺陷給了自民黨夾縫求生的機會，自民黨也明白。自從《經濟學人》在2017
年支持他們之後，他們也同樣變得更極端，在新的黨魁Jo Swinson領導下，他們已不再堅
持推動二次公投的的諾言，這當然招致批評，然而他們的財經政策，利用廣泛的稅基來適
度地增加預算，是所有主要政黨中最明智的，而且他們也是最誠實面對老年化社會成本議
題的政黨。在氣候變遷跟社會政策上他們在現實與理想中取得最佳平衡。就如同上次選舉
一樣，他們是那些反對"強硬脫歐"保守黨或者左傾工黨的最佳選擇。
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.
雖然他們還是沒辦法贏，那為什麼要支持他們?最合理的理由就是他們可以制衡將來的政
府，不少的人擔心支持自民黨會讓柯賓得利，但是根據我們的模型資料顯示，本次選舉的
席次會平均分給兩大黨上，柯賓正打算與蘇格蘭民族黨組成聯合政府，該黨打算支持大部
分柯賓的政策以換取第二次北愛獨立公投的機會。
所以如果自民黨有更多席次，能更有力地監督他的政策，同樣地當然也會限制強森的。一
些保守黨的支持者還在認為假如強森贏得大選，他將會放棄那些民粹法案，重拾古典自由
主義政策，那些人被騙了，因為如果強森了話他將聚焦在實現他那"更多政府津貼"的政見
上，難道他們期待他回過頭來採用新加坡模式嗎?有件事倒是真的：保守黨贏越多，該黨
的改變就會越大。
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.
本報之所以支持自民黨的一個合理理由是因為該黨跟本黨創報精神最接近，假設自民黨贏
越多其實就是告訴公眾，自由市場以及一個自由的社會的想法在中間選民仍非少數。從過
去幾年也看得出來國會缺乏像Sam Gyimah跟Chuka Umunna那樣的政治家，前者認為保守黨
越來越極端而脫黨，後者同樣認為工黨任來越極端而脫黨。脫歐的過程因為那些較有自主
意識的國會議員而變得更好。
假設英國真的在明年一月脫歐，自民黨將扮演著督處政府跟歐盟協議以及強烈反對無協議
脫歐的一方。這場選舉對英國人來說不會有甚麼好的下場，維持中和派是對英國最明智的
選擇。
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the
headline "Britain’s nightmare before Christmas"
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※ 編輯: ejrq5785 (118.171.7.243 臺灣), 12/12/2019 20:12:05