决战1010精英组Economist阅读——Finn分贴

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A thousand cuts

All the same, the intellectual momentum(动力; 要素) that gathered under Mr. Blair has dissipated( 散失, 浪费, 驱散; 消散, 放荡). Mr. Brown may not have unraveled( 阐明, 解开, 解释; 散开) existing policies, but there is little sign of a new phase of reform: in primary schools, for example, or in the powers and structure of local government. New Labour’s push to decentralise


( decentralize 分散，疏散，划分，配置) power and decision-making—to create a new kind of state—has always been retarded(延迟, 阻止, 使减速; 减慢; 受到阻滞) by a countervailing (补偿; 抵销; 对抗; 抵消) instinct, one that combines the retentive neurosis that British governments of all stripes have shared with a residual old-fashioned statism(国家统制，中央集权制). The haphazard (偶然的，随意的，杂乱无章的)
effort now seems to have stalled.

Finally, during New Labour’s long spell in office, the world has changed. The new worries of terrorism and immigration favour parties of the right across Europe. New Labour, meanwhile, has yet to hit upon a distinct and persuasive approach to the new, strategic problem of climate change or the more immediate one of mayhem
(重伤罪，故意的伤害罪，有意的破坏或暴行) in the global economy. A deficit of imagination is a problem for any administration, but a crippling one for governments of the centre-left, which tend to live and die by their ideas.

“Their time is up.” Mr Blair said of the Tories in 1994: “Their philosophy is done. Their experiment is over.” New Labour seems, at the moment, to have reached that point too. Old age, penury(贫困, 贫穷), Mr Cameron, Mr Brown: they are all incriminated. But, in the end, New Labour killed itself.

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词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

Ties that bind

Andrew Rawnsley's political vivisection
Mar 4th 2010 | From The Economist print edition




Foes and friends

The End of the Party: the Rise and Fall of New Labour. By Andrew Rawnsley. Viking; 802 pages; £25. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

LABOUR under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown has ruled Britain for longer than any non-Conservative (非保守) government in the past 100 years. With an election due in the next three months, there is a real chance that the last days of Pompeii (庞贝城的最后一日(1834年),爱德华·乔治·厄尔·利顿1803-1873英国作家,以其颇受欢迎的历史小说而闻名) are upon us. How will history judge New Labour—as an idealistic attempt to improve lives through a blend of free-market economics and social justice, or a cynical sucking of power from longstanding and broadly functioning institutions to a small group of media-hungry, manipulative politicians?

This engrossing (引人入胜的) book by Andrew Rawnsley, like its predecessor a decade ago, “Servants of the People”, has pulled together a lot of clues. Less than a week old, it already has Westminster (英国议会) agog (渴望的; 激动的; 极兴奋的) with its well-sourced but roundly (严厉地, 露骨地) denied allegations ( 断言; 辩解), serialised (serialize(美)) in the Observer weekly newspaper for which Mr Rawnsley writes. Chief among these is the idea that the prime minister is a bully who shouts and throws things. But there is much more in this detailed account of the years since Labour’s second victory, in 2001.

We see Mr Blair change from a warmly communicative, consensus-seeking Peter Pan (《彼得·潘》是英国著名作家杰·姆·巴里（1860—1937）的童话剧和童话故事，出版于1904年。) to a grey and embattled conviction politician, as the war in Iraq hijacks his agenda for social change and a role “at the heart of Europe”. Then there is Mr Brown, the clunking brainbox impatient for his turn, who bragged (吹牛, 自夸, 自吹) as chancellor that he had commanded boom and bust to cease (停止, 结束; 停止, 终止) and was caught behind the knees as prime minister when the economy collapsed. Around them flutters a Greek chorus (合唱; 齐声; 合唱队) of advisers, civil servants, old friends and new spinmasters, whose aggrieved (使 ... 受屈) or gloating (得意扬扬的; 幸灾乐祸的) comments bring these pages to life.

Mr Rawnsley’s book is essentially about relationships, and three in particular. The central one is, of course, that between Mr Blair and Mr Brown. Once friends as well as allies, the two modernised the Labour Party in the early 1990s, dragging it from its industrial, collectivist roots to the sunlit uplands of middle-class aspiration. Then Mr Blair bagged the party leadership, promising Mr Brown his turn in time. From this alliance, poisoned by frustrated ambition, sprang (弹起, 反弹, 弹开; 突然出现) both the good and the increasingly dysfunctional bad of New Labour in power. In one encounter in 2006, Mr Brown “kept shouting at me that I’d ruined his life”, Mr Blair allegedly (据传说, 据宣称) told his friends. The chancellor made his own arrangements for ousting the party’s most successful election-winner (or so Mr Rawnsley claims).

Mr Blair’s ability to sway people was the key to his success. Yet he was fatally weak when dealing with strong men, says Mr Rawnsley. Just as he could not control his chancellor (he was, for instance, totally “boxed in” by Mr Brown on sterling and the euro), he found it next to impossible to stand up (站得住脚的，经久耐用) to George Bush. Time after time Mr Blair vows (立誓, 起誓要; 起誓, 承认, 发誓; 公开宣布) to his intimates that he will tackle the American president on the Middle East peace process, or reconstructing Iraq after the war, but fails to nail (使牢固，抓住) it.

The other important relationship is that between Mr Brown and Peter Mandelson, the third architect of New Labour. Lord Mandelson backed Mr Blair over Mr Brown early on and incurred (招致, 带来, 惹起; 遭受) the latter’s hurt and resentful enmity. But in the depths of despair a year into a yearned-for (盼望已久的，渴望的) premiership that had misfired on most fronts, Mr Brown turned again to his former friend. The return to government in 2008 of Lord Mandelson, with his fine Machiavellian (马基雅弗利的, 权谋术的) hand, was one of the few genuine surprises of recent political life.

Against this background of loyalties and betrayals, triumphs and gagging (使窒息, 压制言论自由) disasters, what are New Labour’s real achievements? Bringing peace to Northern Ireland, incontrovertibly; improving (though at excessive cost) health care and education; perhaps promoting a more tolerant Britain. Now New Labour has grown old in office: not only the notoriously tongue-tied Mr Brown but even that smoothie, Mr Blair, have struggled to preserve the alliance of working and middle-class voters who once supported it.

Yet Mr Rawnsley may have been too quick to write off New Labour, as his book’s title suggests he has. The Tories’ once-commanding lead in the polls has narrowed in recent weeks and there is now a real contest for power. As has been said in another melodramatic (通俗剧风格的，戏剧似的，感情夸张的) context, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” (鹿死谁手尚未可知)

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Cameron, the grave-robber

Many of these policies were initially opposed by the Conservatives, but most have now been adopted by David Cameron, their leader since 2005. Mr Cameron has also accepted New Labour’s social liberalism, updating his party’s official views on sexuality, and evinced(表明, 表示) (or simulated) a concern for the poor. New Labour has succeeded in making compassion compulsory. And Mr Cameron has embraced New Labour’s public-service reform agenda—while indicating that Britain’s universal, tax-funded health service will remain politically sacrosanct(极神圣的) under a Tory government. Just as New Labour swallowed deregulation and free markets, so Mr Cameron has incorporated many of New Labour’s central tenets(原则，宗旨). He, too, has helped to kill New Labour—but also, arguably(雄辩地; 可以认为地), to ensure some of its ideas endure, reincarnated as Tory policy.

Unfortunately(过渡段),for the party and the country, New Labour was also undermined from its inception by internal weaknesses and contradictions. These have always been visible, but now look terminal.

One of the problems is that having and eating the cake is possible only if the cake is big enough. New Labour spent lavishly(浪费地; 丰富地) on the public services, at first as a substitute for proper reform and then as lubrication(润滑; 加油) for it. With the economy growing steadily, healthy government receipts paid for the generous benefits and tax credits. Now, perforce(必然地), the splurge(卖弄, 夸示, 炫耀) is over—and tougher times require choices that New Labour hoped, and for a long time managed, to avoid. It has come to look rather like a fair-weather creed.

The pressure on the budget has also revealed fissures(裂缝, 裂隙) within the Labour Party, cracks that have opened periodically but are now gaping. New Labour, like most political parties, has always been a precarious(不稳定的, 危险的, 不安的) coalition of parliamentarians and interests, from trade unionists who submitted to the “third way” reluctantly, to sharp-suited “modernisers”. Economic hardship and tightening spending constraints have brought the resulting tensions into the open: witness the recent row over whether the government should impose a windfall tax on energy companies and use the money to help poor families meet their rising fuel bills (it didn’t).

Those disagreements may also help to save Mr Brown, since his critics have no coherent view on the changes that ought to follow. It isn’t only the money that has run out. So have the ideas.

Although he was one of New Labour’s architects, as chancellor Mr Brown cultivated a reputation as less New and more straightforwardly Labour than Mr Blair, perhaps because this stance strengthened his hand in internal party politics. As prime minister, he at first seemed unenthusiastic about Mr Blair’s efforts to inject choice and competition into the public services. But he has recently seemed more committed, appreciating, perhaps, that simply pledging improvements, without a credible theory of how they might be achieved(介词), wouldn’t wash.In fact, many of his biggest troubles as prime minister have derived from an excess of New Labour orthodoxy. His government’s indecision over how to handle the collapse of Northern Rock, the bank that was an early victim of the credit crunch(咬碎; 扎扎地踏; 咬碎声), was partly born of a violent allergy to the term “nationalisation”, with its whiff(一吹, 一阵香气, 一吸) of Old Labour shibboleths(口令，陈腔滥调，术语). His quixotic (堂吉诃德式的; 不能实现的; 狂想的)determination to enact illiberal anti-terror laws reflects a deep New Labour conviction that it must never be out-toughed on crime and security.

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By its own hand

But they are not the whole solution of the New Labour mystery either. It is true that time kills all governments and that economic troubles often make them unpopular. (It is true that… and that… 并列成分)But the Tories won an election during a downturn in 1992. And it was not inevitable that three parliamentary terms would be New Labour’s limit (Mr Blair used to talk about bequeathing (遗赠, 遗留) a “progressive century”). There is another factor, one which few Labour MPs wish to confront.

“It is not this or that minister that is to blame,” Mr Blair said of the Tories in that 1994 speech: it was, he said, a whole ideology that had failed. Something similar might be said of New Labour today. Its approach to government increasingly looks expensive, exhausted and outmoded.

New Labour emerged in the 1990s from a double epiphany on the part of Mr Blair, Mr Brown and others: an intellectual acknowledgment that deregulation and free markets were, after all, the best way to maximise prosperity; and a political recognition that(并列), with the shrinkage of its traditional working-class base, Labour would never win power again unless it courted and reassured the middle classes.

These realizations(realization(美)) were honed—partly in wonkathons with Bill Clinton and other New Democrats—into a rough-and-ready political philosophy. It purported to offer a new path between socialism and neoliberalism(新自由主义), promising a utopia(乌托邦, 理想国) of “ands”: competitive tax rates and quality public services, which would be blessed with both investment and reform; patriotism and internationalism (as Mr Blair wrote in a 1998 pamphlet on the “third way”) and rights and responsibilities; tough on (对 ... 严厉的) crime and tough on the causes of crime; a free market and a robust social safety net; have cake and eat it (有鱼和熊掌兼得). The Old Labour fixation on equality of outcomes was replaced by a new notion of “equal worth”. The state was to be an “enabler” and guarantor. The poor would be “levelled up” rather than the rich squeezed down. Mr Blair famously did not have “a burning ambition…to make sure David Beckham earns less.”

The rhetoric(修辞, 修辞学, 华丽虚饰的语言) was excoriated (剥皮, 严厉的责难) by some as vapid (乏味的, 无生气的, 走了气味的) marketing, and by others as thinly disguised neo-Thatcherism(新撒切尔主义). But New Labour did, in fact, have corresponding policies. It demonstrated its commitment to macroeconomic stability by giving the Bank of England autonomy in the setting of interest rates; just as the New Democrats fetishised budget-balancing, so Mr Brown, as chancellor, bound government expenditure with his fiscal “golden rules” (which he now looks set to break). But there was also a minimum wage, assorted welfare-to-work schemes and covert redistribution of wealth through a fiddly(要求高精度的，需要手巧的) system of tax credits. There was lots of cash for public services, combined, albeit(尽管, 虽然) belatedly(延迟地, 延续地), with some market-based reform; the introduction of tuition fees for universities; more freedom for some hospitals and schools; the encouragement of competition among providers, including private ones.

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Quietly in its bed

That may change if the rebellion mounts at or soon after next week’s conference; some members of the cabinet (内阁) have been less than full-throated (声音宏亮的)
in their support of Mr Brown. But if they think deposing him will revive New Labour at a regicidal stroke, the rebels are mistaken. New Labour is also suffering from a separate and incurable condition: old age.

Before 1997, no Labour government had served two full parliamentary (议会的, 国会的) terms in office. New Labour has managed three, winning two landslide (竞选中压倒多数的选票) victories in the general elections of 1997 and 2001 and a comfortable parliamentary majority in 2005. It has outlived the other governments of the centre-left that were once its peers—in France, Germany, America and elsewhere. But it has not—could not—defy political gravity indefinitely. It had to fall in the end.

Look at the evidence closely and it is clear that the decline precedes Mr Brown’s move to Number 10. Between 1997 and 2005 the party lost 4m voters. It won its last general election with just 35.2% of the popular vote, the lowest winning share ever. The grand coalition of working- and middle-class voters that swept Mr Blair to power in 1997—enabling him, with hubris (傲慢) but some justification, to describe his party as “the political wing of the British people”—has crumbled. Disappointments have mounted (增加), as they must; the public craves (渴望) new faces; antagonism to the Tories has faded. New Labour understands that natural process, which is partly why it replaced Mr Blair, just as the Tories confected an impression of change by installing Mr Major in place of Margaret Thatcher (撒切尔夫人).

(转折)Yet change and attrition in personnel—a natural consequence of the government’s longevity—has weakened New Labour too. Several of its most talented and determined campaigners—some of the people who created New Labour—have, one way or another, departed. (本篇用了很多“—”既不会使人看晕也会增加句子的复杂性)Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett were obliged to leave the government twice each. Robin Cook resigned over Iraq.Jaundiced as his relationship with the country became (not least because of Iraq), Mr Blair was by light years the party’s biggest star.

The other natural cause that has caught up with New Labour is the economic cycle—exacerbated (恶化; 激怒; 增剧) and accelerated, in this case, by the credit crunch and rises in commodities prices. Inflation in Britain has crept up (攀升) and growth stalled; recession, albeit(尽管, 虽然) perhaps a short one, is imminent if not already happening. The hardship may so far be mild compared with previous downturns in the 1970s and 1980s. But those are now distant memories, and for young voters scarcely a memory at all.

For a prime minister who built his reputation, and his claim to the premiership, on economic management, the political consequences are especially acute. When he was chancellor, Mr Brown claimed, rashly(轻率地) and repeatedly, to have led Britain out of the old pattern of “boom and bust”. He sucked up credit for economic success, for which New Labour was only marginally responsible. He ought not to be surprised that the public blames him now.



PA Bushy-tailed Blair and Brown in 1994

Among some Labour MPs, these twin conditions—a sense of superannuation (老年退休; 陈旧, 过时), and the gathering economic gloom—have induced a kind of fatalism (宿命论): a belief that, disappointing as Mr Brown may be, no other leader could resist the forces that are driving Labour to defeat. This despair may constitute the prime minister’s best hope of avoiding a coup (政变). And in their way these implacable but impersonal（客观的） elements offer a consoling explanation of Labour’s woes（悲哀, 苦痛, 悲痛）, especially for Mr Brown himself.

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Mr Brown, in the library

But if the demise (遗赠) is plain enough (足够清楚), the explanation is less so. Who killed New Labour? There are three possible solutions: murder, natural causes or political suicide. (中心句)

For some Labour MPs, the culprit is obvious: Mr Brown. He waited most of his life to fill the top job, scheming and manoeuvring during his long years as chancellor of the exchequer (财政部), destabilising (是不是打错了？ destabilizing) the government with his simmering (即将爆发，酝酿) ambition and rows with Mr Blair. In June 2007 he finally got his wish—and botched it. Under Mr Brown’s leadership, the party has haemorrhaged (hemorrhaged?) support and credibility. Unlike John Major—who also took over in mid-term from a long-serving and iconic predecessor, but whom the public mostly viewed as the decent if hapless leader of a disreputable rabble (乌合之众，暴民)—this prime minister is even more unpopular than his party.




Mr Brown’s fingerprints are all over the two most damaging mistakes of his brief premiership. (中心句) First, the calamitous (灾难的)episode last autumn, when he floated the idea of calling a general election, then pulled back. It was a tragicomedy (悲喜交加) in three acts: by vacillating and then “bottling” it, Mr Brown ruined his claim to strong leadership; by claiming that alarming opinion-poll results had not swayed his decision, he undermined his trustworthiness; by meekly (好句型)and hastily emulating a popular Tory (保守党) idea on reducing inheritance tax, he seemed plagiaristic and desperate.

The other main debacle (溃败，灾害)concerned the abolition of the 10% income-tax band, a change Mr Brown announced in 2007 in the last budget he delivered as chancellor. When it came into effect in April, several million low-income households were disadvantaged; the resulting furore (轰动，狂怒)

eventually led to an emergency tax cut. And worse than both these cock-ups (一团糟)has been Mr Brown’s personal and consistent failure to speak to the electorate in a language it understands—in other words, to discharge the key communications responsibility borne by all 21st-century democratic politicians. In place of (取代)vision and placating empathy, he seems to offer only droning iterations.

And if Mr Brown is the culprit, the remedy is plain: to get rid of him. That is the aim of the dozen or so Labour MPs—a couple of junior officials (promptly sacked), a gaggle of (一群)former ministers and a gang of backbenchers—who have publicly tried (公开审理), but so far failed, to force a party-leadership contest. Their stand has been touchingly unco-ordinated; more effective, it may transpire, for seeming heartfelt rather than conspiratorial. Their aim is to pressure members of the cabinet (内阁) to push Mr Brown out, using the threat of group resignations if he refuses. Ousting (驱逐) him would make Labour look chaotic (混乱), fractious and undemocratic. But the rebels (反叛者) calculate that short-term embarrassment is preferable to electoral obliteration.

On September 16th David Cairns, a minister in the Scottish office, resigned, citing doubts about Mr Brown’s leadership. There are many others in government who sympathise (and some with scores to settle from the decade-long hostilities between Mr Brown’s acolytes(追随者，侍僧) and Mr Blair’s). For the moment, however, the insurgents lack a high-profile champion. They also lack an agreed successor. David Miliband, the clever young foreign secretary and a supposed candidate, professes his loyalty. Ditto two of his plausible rivals, Alan Johnson, the personable health secretary, and Jack Straw, the wily(使用计谋的, 狡猾的, 有诡计的)justice secretary.

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词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

Who killed New Labour?

The death throes of Britain’s ruling party suggest several possible culprits (罪犯，这里指问题的根或原因)

Jupiter Images
Sep 18th 2008 | From The Economist print edition

“WE MEET ina spirit of hope,” the new leader of theLabour Party (英国政党，过去与工会的联系促使其在创造国家经济繁荣和提供社会服务上扮演活跃的角色。) told its annual conference. “For the first time in a generation”, he declaimed, “it is the right wing that appears lost and disillusioned.” The speech ended with an incantation (咒语): “New Labour! New Britain! New Labour! New Britain!”

That was Tony Blair, in 1994. It was a speech that announced the birth of New Labour—the flexible social-democratic (社会民主党) movement that dominated British politics until very recently. Next week, at this year’s party conference, Gordon Brown—Mr Blair’ssuccessor (继任者) as Labour leader and prime minister—will also give a speech, conceivably his last big address in those offices. This one may come to be regarded as New Labour’selegy (挽歌).
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New Labour is dying. It has lost the three vital qualities that kept it alive and vibrant (充满活力的) (中心句). First, discipline. A shared purpose and scowling partyapparatchiks (执政党工作人员) once bound Labour MPs (国会议员) to a party line; now some are calling for Mr Brown to stand down (退休)—and he may yet have to, little more than a year after he moved into Number 10. The rumblings (general but unofficial talk or opinion often of dissatisfaction) about his leadership already constitute a crisis, and a humiliation, for him and his party.

Second, intellectual confidence: the party that once defined the intellectual terrain of politics has been reduced toaping (模仿) its opponents’ policies. Most important, New Labour has lost the habit of winning.

What has been one of the great election-winning forces in British political history has been routed in a run of parliamentary (议会) by-elections and local votes. Its poll ratings are so bad—a survey released on September 18th gave the Conservatives a 28-point lead—that recovery before the next general election, due by June 2010, looks almost impossible. On current form, the resulting defeat may be Labour’s worst since the second world war. In the aftermath (在此之后) of such a rout, some Labour supporters fear, the party may disintegrate, with a revived Old Labour faction, wedded to the ideals of punitive taxation and a monolithic (统一的) state, reasserting its anachronistic grip.