文章来源：《经济学人》Jul 2nd 2022 期 Leaders 栏目
Boris Johnson should go immediately
鲍里斯·约翰逊应该立即下台
BritAIn after Boris Johnson
约翰逊之后的英国
Britain is in a dangerous state
英国正处于危险之中
Jul 7th 2022 (Updated Jul 8th 2022)
Boris johnson’s government has collapsed at last. For months Britain’s prime minister wriggled out of one scandal after another. Now, irretrievably rejected by his own mps, he has accepted that his premiership is over. He has asked to stay until the autumn, but he should go immediately.
鲍里斯•约翰逊的政府终于垮台了。几个月来，英国首相摆脱了一个又一个丑闻。现在，在被自己的议员无可挽回地拒绝后，他承认自己的首相生涯结束了。他要求待到秋天，但他应该马上走。
Mr Johnson was brought down by his own dishonesty, so some may conclude that a simple change of leadership will be enough to get Britain back on course. If only. Although Mr Johnson’s fingerprints are all over today’s mess, the problems run deeper than one man. Unless the ruling Conservative Party musters the fortitude to face that fact, Britain’s many social and economic difficulties will only worsen.
约翰逊是由于自己的不诚实而下台的，因此一些人可能会得出这样的结论:简单地更换领导层就足以让英国重回正轨。如果只是这样就好了。尽管约翰逊的影子在今天的混乱中随处可见，但问题远不止一个人的问题。除非执政的保守党鼓起勇气面对这一事实，否则英国的许多社会和经济困难只会恶化。
Right up until the end Mr Johnson clung desperately to power, arguing that he had a direct mandate from the people. That was always nonsense: his legitimacy derived from Parliament. Like America’s former president, Donald Trump, the more he hung on the more he disqualified himself from office. In his departure, as in government, Mr Johnson demonstrated a wanton disregard for the interests of his party and the nation.
直到最后一刻，约翰逊还在拼命地紧握权力不放，声称他是人民的直接授权。这一直都是无稽之谈:他的合法性来源于议会。就像美国前总统唐纳德·川普一样，他越紧握权力不放，就越无资格担任公职。约翰逊的离职，就像在政府中一样，显示出他对政党和国家利益的肆意漠视。
Although the denouement took almost two excruciating days, his fate was sealed on July 5th when two cabinet ministers resigned. The catalyst was the behaviour of his party’s deputy chief whip, accused by two men of a drunken sexual assault. Downing Street lied about what the prime minister had known of the whip’s record of abuse, and sent out ministers to repeat its falsehoods—just as it had months earlier over illegal parties in the pandemic. Despairing of yet another scandal, over 50 ministers, aides and envoys joined an executive exodus so overwhelming that the bbc featured a ticker with a running total to keep up. In the end the government had so many vacancies that it could no longer function—one reason Mr Johnson should not stay on as caretaker.
尽管最后的结局持续了痛苦的两天，但他的命运早在7月5日两名内阁部长辞职时确定了。他所在政党的副首席党鞭的行为是催化剂，他被两名男子指控酒后性侵。唐宁街谎称首相知道党鞭滥用职权的情况，并派出大臣重复这一谎言，就像几个月前它在大流行病期间非法举行派对所做的那样。由于对又一桩丑闻感到绝望，50多名部长、助手和使节加入了高层官员离职的队伍，人数之多令人震惊，以至于BBC用了一个实时播报来跟进。最终政府会因为职位空缺太多而无法继续运作，这也是约翰逊不应该继续担任临时代理人的原因之一。
The party will hope that its agony is now drawing to a close. But that depends on it taking the right lessons from Mr Johnson’s failure. One is about character in politics. Mr Johnson rejected the notion that to govern is to choose. He lacked the moral fibre to take hard decisions for the national good if that threatened his own popularity. He also lacked the constancy and the grasp of detail to see policies through. And he revelled in trampling rules and conventions. At the root of his style was an unshakable faith in his ability to get out of scrapes by spinning words. In a corner, Mr Johnson would charm, temporise, prevaricate and lie outright. Occasionally, he even apologised.
该党将希望它的痛苦现在接近尾声。但这取决于它能否从约翰逊的失败中吸取正确的教训。一个是关于政治中的性格。约翰逊拒绝了“执政就是要做出决定”的观点。他缺乏为国家利益做出艰难决定的道德品格，如果这威胁到他自己的声望。他在贯彻政策时也缺乏坚定不移和对细节的把控。他喜欢践踏规则和惯例。他这种风格的根源在于，他坚信自己有能力通过夸夸其谈摆脱困境。在某个困境中，约翰逊会施展魅力、拖延时间、搪塞以及公然撒谎。偶尔，他甚至会道歉。
As a result, the bright spots in his record, such as the procurement of vaccines against covid-19 and support for Ukraine, were overwhelmed by scandal elsewhere. Behind the unfolding drama was a void where there should have been a vision. Crises were not a distraction from the business of government: they became the business of government. As the scandals mounted, so did the lies. Eventually, nothing much else was left.
因此，他的执政记录中的亮点，如采购新冠疫苗和支持乌克兰，被其他丑闻淹没。在呈现的戏剧背后是一片空白，那里本该有一个愿景。危机并非干扰到政府事务：它们变成了政府事务。丑闻愈演愈烈，谎言也愈来愈多。最后，剩下的就不多了。
Conservatives have been quick to blame everything on Mr Johnson’s character. But his going will be cathartic only if they also acknowledge a second, less comfortable truth. He was an answer to the contradictions in his party. Many of today’s Tory mps belong to the low-tax, more libertarian and free-market tradition, but others, many from northern constituencies, cleave to a new big-spending, interventionist and protectionist wing. They won Mr Johnson an 87-seat majority in the last election and are vital to Conservative fortunes in the next.
【1】cathartic 有宣泄作用的；宣泄式的保守派很快就把一切都归咎于约翰逊的性格。但只有当他们承认另一个不那么令人舒服的事实时，他的离开才会是一种宣泄。他是党内矛盾的解决者。今天的保守党议员中有许多人都是“低税、更自由主义以及自由市场”的派别，但其他一些议员，许多来自北方选区，则坚持新的大手笔支出、干涉主义和保护主义派别。他们在上次选举中为约翰逊赢得了87个席位的多数，并且在下次选举中对保守党的命运至关重要。
The charismatic Mr Johnson was able to lash these factions together because he never felt the need to resolve their contradictions. Instead he was for both protectionism and free-trade agreements; he wanted a bonfire of red tape even as he punished energy firms for high prices; he planned huge government spending but promised sweeping tax cuts.
魅力超凡的约翰逊之所以能够将这些派系团结在一起，是因为他从不觉得有必要解决它们之间的矛盾。相反，他既支持保护主义，也支持自由贸易协定；当他惩罚能源公司的高价格，他想要的是一堆繁文缛节；他计划巨额政府支出，但承诺全面减税。
This is the politics of fantasy, and you can trace it back to Brexit. In the campaign to leave the European Union Mr Johnson promised voters that they could have everything they wanted—greater wealth, less Europe; more freedom, less regulation; more dynamism, less immigration—and that the eu would be knocking on Britain’s door desperate for a deal. It worked so well that fantasy became the Tories’ organising principle.
这是幻想中的政治，你可以追溯到英国脱欧。在脱欧运动中，约翰逊向选民们承诺，他们可以得到他们想要的一切，即更多的财富，更少的欧洲；更多的自由，更少的监管；更多的活力，更少的移民，以及欧盟会迫切地敲开英国的大门，希望达成协议。这种做法非常有效，以至于幻想成了保守党的组织原则。
Nowhere is this more true than in the economy, where lies the third lesson the next government must learn. Mr Johnson often boasted that Britain’s economic record was the envy of the world, but he was spinning words again. The truth is that the Britain he will leave behind faces grave social and economic problems.
这一点在经济领域表现得最为明显，这是下届政府必须汲取的第三个教训。约翰逊经常吹嘘说，英国的经济令全世界羡慕，但他又在夸夸其谈了。事实是，他将离任的英国面临着严重的社会和经济问题。
It has the highest inflation in the g7, which lavish government spending using borrowed money could well entrench. As we wrote recently, average annual gdp growth in the decade leading up to the global financial crisis of 2007-09 was 2.7%; today the average is closer to 1.7%. Britain is stuck in a 15-year low-productivity rut. The country is forecast to have the slowest growth in the g7 in 2023.
英国的通货膨胀率在七国集团中是最高的，利用借来的钱挥霍政府开支很可能会加剧这一局面。正如我们最近所写的那样，在2007-2009年全球金融危机爆发前的10年里，年均GDP增长率为2.7%；如今，这一平均值接近1.7%。英国陷入了长达15年的低生产率困境。预计到2023年，该国的经济增长将是七国集团中最慢的。
What is more, this spluttering engine faces extraordinary demands. Industrial action is spreading from the rail unions to lawyers and doctors. As the cost of living rises, a coherent and determined government is needed to hold the line on spending. Britain is ageing. From 1987 to 2010, when the Tories took office, the share of the British population aged over 65 was steady, at 16%. It is now 19% and by 2035 will be close to 25%, adding to the benefits bill and the burden on the National Health Service, already buckling under the weight of untreated patients.
更重要的是，这台噼啪作响的发动机面临着巨大的需求。罢工正从铁路工会蔓延到律师和医生。随着生活成本的上升，需要一个连贯而坚定的政府来控制开支。英国正面临着老龄化问题。1987年到2010年保守党执政期间，英国65岁以上人口的比例稳定在16%。现在是19%，到2035年预计将接近25%，这增加了福利账单和NHS的负担，而NHS已经被未治疗患者的负担压垮了。
Britain also needs to speed its transition to a net-zero-emissions economy, requiring a vast programme of investment. It has ambitions to count in a world where Russia throw their weight around, but its armed forces are small and under-equipped. Scotland and Northern Ireland are restless in the Union and Westminster has no plan to make them content.
英国还需要加快向净零排放经济的转型，这需要大规模的投资计划。在俄罗斯耀武扬威的世界里，英国有自己的野心，但它的武装力量规模小，装备不足。苏格兰和北爱尔兰在联合王国中躁动不安，威斯敏斯特也没有让他们满意的计划。
Britain is in a dangerous state. The country is poorer than it imagines. Its current-account deficit has ballooned, sterling has tumbled and debt-interest costs are rising. If the next government insists on raising spending and cutting taxes at the same time, it could stumble into a crisis. The time when everything was possible is over. With Mr Johnson’s departure, politics must once more become anchored to reality. ■
英国正处于危险之中。这个国家比它想象的更穷。它的经常项目赤字激增，英镑贬值，债务利息成本上升。如果下届政府坚持在增加开支的同时削减税收，它可能会陷入危机。一切皆有可能的时代已经结束。随着约翰逊的离开，政治必须再次与现实紧密联系起来。■
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