two years ago this week david cameron and nick clegg launched their coalition government in a sun-dappled downing street garden, at a joint press conference so filled with smiles, jokes and shared glances that it was compared to a gay wedding. on may 8th britain’s conservative prime minister and his liberal democrat deputy renewed their coalition vows in a tractor factory. there were few jokes. the work of government was “hard”, mr cameron told stony-faced workers.
两年前的本周，唐宁街的一座花园里日光斑驳，大卫•卡梅伦和尼克•克莱格（nick clegg）共同举行记者招待会，宣布成立联合政府。他们的脸上堆满了微笑，言谈中插科打诨，还不时会心地相互一瞥，人们认为就像在举行基情婚礼。5月8日，英国保守党首相和自民党副首相在一座拖拉机工厂中重申了他们联合执政的誓言。他们没说什么笑话。卡梅伦告诉面无表情的工人们，政府的工作“十分艰难”。
two-thirds of voters now disapprove of mr cameron’s performance and three-quarters disdain mr clegg’s. in local elections on may 3rd their parties lost hundreds of council seats, mostly to the opposition labour party: when boris johnson, the tory mayor of london, bucked the trend and kept his job, that prompted gossip that he would be a better leader. britain’s economy has dipped back into recession. a judicial inquiry into the press has revealed a shamefully cosy relationship between conservative leaders and newspapers owned by rupert murdoch. the government, and the prime minister in particular, are described as “out of touch” and told to “get a grip”—and that is just to quote conservatives in parliament.
三分之二的选民现在对卡梅伦的表现不满，四分之三的选民鄙视克莱格的表现。在5月3日的地方选举中，保守党和自民党失去了数以百计的地方议员席位，其中大部分被反对党工党夺得。但保守党的伦敦市市长鲍里斯•约翰逊却反潮流而行，保住了他的职位，这不免让有些人窃窃私语，认为他会是保守党党魁的更好人选。英国的经济又一次跌入衰退。就媒体道德举行的法庭听证会揭出了保守党诸领袖与鲁珀特•默多克旗下报纸间温馨得可耻的关系。“没有与时共进”——人们这样形容政府，特别是首相；他们应该“戮力自强，改进工作”——而且这还是保守党议员在议会中的原话。
what has gone wrong? less than at first appears. mid-term slumps happen. margaret thatcher’s government once trailed labour by 24 percentage points. mr cameron lags by around ten points. labour’s leader, ed miliband, is still unpopular and his party has yet to regain economic credibility shredded during the financial crisis. above all, mr cameron’s government has still got most of the big things right. both for the country’s sake and for his own, the prime minister needs to refocus his government on the clear, bold message that he began with.
什么地方出了问题？情况并没有乍看上去的那么严重。执政党在中期选举中处于颓势的情况时有发生。撒切尔夫人的政府曾有落后于工党24个百分点的记录，卡梅伦只不过落后了大约10个。工党领袖艾德•米利班德依旧不得人心；工党驾驭的经济能力在经济危机中为人诟病，现在尚待恢复。最为重要的是，卡梅伦政府对大部分重大事件的处理基本正确。但无论是出于英国的国家利益或是为了他本人，卡梅伦都需要让政府重新重视他上台伊始时努力实践的清晰、大胆的政策。
less pride and prejudice 少一点傲慢与偏见 [注1]
there are all sorts of areas where this newspaper disagrees with the government—its petulant attitude to europe, its banker- basing, its failure to prize immigrants. but the coalition came to power with two admirably clear plans. on the economy, it argued that the state had been spending too freely, and thus embarked on a courageous course of deficit-reduction. more generally, it recognised that the state needed to be radically trimmed and set about a thoroughgoing reform of education, welfare, policing, pensions and much more besides. broadly speaking, the economic part of its agenda remains more successful than the public-sector reforms (see article).
本报不同意政府的许多观点，如它对欧洲的任性态度、它以银行家为基础、它对移民的不重视等。但联合政府上台时有着两个令人称道的计划。经济上，它认为政府过去花销太大，因此大胆着手减少赤字。更广泛地说，它意识到政府需要进行根本性的精简，并开始在教育、福利、治安、养老金计划和其他许多方面进行彻底改革。大体上说，政府在经济方面的工作还是比在公共部门改革方面更为成功（见另文）。
that may seem an odd case to make, given the double-dip recession. yet a look at the euro zone’s problems is salutary. first, it provides an excuse of sorts: with the governments in britain’s main export market bent on committing financial suicide several times over (see article), it is not surprising britain has suffered. second, even though britain’s finances were in a worse state than those of most euro-zone countries, the policy of cutting the deficit has retained the support of investors—and thus helped keep bond rates low. we would prefer it if fewer of the cuts were on capital spending and there was greater emphasis on deregulation. but clarity has won the argument with voters, who recognise cuts are inevitable and still prefer the austere tories to free-spending labour.
考虑到经济上出现的二次探底，这么说似乎有点古怪。但看看欧元区的麻烦会有助于理解这一问题。首先，这给了政府一个还算说得过去的借口：作为英国主要出口市场的那些国家的政府多次实施经济自杀（见另文），英国遭到池鱼之灾也不足为奇。第二，尽管英国的财政状况不如欧元区的多数国家，但政府的减赤政策一直得到了投资者的支持，这有助于使债券收益率保持低水平。我们曾认为，如果政府能少减少些资本支出、更强调放松管制，情况则会更好。但基于清晰事实的论点赢得了选民，让他们意识到削减是不可避免的，因此他们情愿继续支持简朴的保守党，而不支持大手大脚的工党。
a similar sense of purpose is evident in only two of the government’s public-sector reforms: schools and welfare. in both cases the government has clearly spelled out that it inherited an unsustainable and flawed system. the education secretary, michael gove, has repeatedly said that too many state schools are not good enough and that public examinations have been dumbed down. his peer on welfare, iain duncan smith, has explained that making limitless payments to the work-shy makes no sense. with schools, the tories’ answer has been more diversity and competition. with welfare, they have tried to ensure that cash goes only to those who really need it.
说到政府的国营企事业改革，人们只能在两个方面明显地看到类似的目的感：学校与福利。在这两方面政府都清楚地说明了，它接下来的摊子存在缺陷，无法维持。教育部长迈克尔•戈夫（michael gove）多次申明，公立学校中达不到要求的太多，国家考试标准也在不断降低。主管福利发放的就业与养老金事务部长伊恩•邓肯•史密斯（iain duncan smith）认为，无限度地出钱养活那些不愿就业的人很不合理。保守党引进了多渠道办学与竞争机制解决学校问题。在福利方面，他们尝试让钱只花在真正需要救济的人身上。
better persuasion needed 需要更好的劝导[注3]
the coalition has been far less straightforward, and less successful, when making the case for reform in other areas. a proposed shake-up of the national health service (nhs) was, at heart, an attempt to tackle soaring costs and improve quality by promoting competition and by getting trusted family doctors to do more rationing. but the message was muddled. the tories vowed before the 2010 election to ring-fence nhs spending—telling voters, in effect, that the status quo was affordable. that made it a shock when ministers unveiled a huge restructuring after the election, defended with complex arguments about patient choice and bureaucratic structures.
联合政府在其他方面的改革远没有教育和福利那样直接，也不那么成功。它提议在国民保健服务上进行大变动，其建议的本质是试图阻止医疗费用的大幅度上涨并改善服务质量，其措施是加强竞争，并让病人信任的家庭医生更多地负责医疗与医药分配方面的工作。但这传递了混乱的信息。保守党在2010年大选前承诺严格保证国民保健服务的开支；这相当于告诉选民，政府财政足以维持国民保健服务的现状。大选后部长们宣布了庞大的重组计划，还以病人的选择权利与官僚机构方面的复杂论点为之辩护，这就对选民的心理造成了冲击。
then there was the sorry saga of the big society. the plan to find alternatives to an overweening state in the provision of public services made sense only if profitmaking firms were fully part of the mix. but it was presented as all about volunteers and charities, which did not add up to voters too harried to run local libraries. another decent idea, introducing elected mayors, has also been killed by obfuscation. when it comes to reform, honesty pays—something mrs thatcher understood.
然后就是有关“大社会”计划[注2]的不幸传奇。这一计划是要找到一种除了妄自尊大的政府之外向人民提供公共服务的替代方法，而这仅当盈利性公司全力参与时才有可能成功。但计划的表述似乎全都跟自愿者与慈善机构有关，在忙得连当地图书馆都顾不上管的选民看来，仅靠这些人是不够的。另一个很好的想法是让市民直选市长，但也因为表述模糊无疾而终。事关改革的时候，就是政党诚信起作用的时候，这种事情撒切尔夫人是清楚的。
the tory right blames the confusion on the coalition and those nervous, left-leaning lib dems. that is largely unfair: the nhs reforms were over-complex long before the lib dems started watering them down, and mr clegg has not wavered on deficit reduction and welfare curbs. it is also irrelevant. the tories are in a coalition: much better to be frank about the (relatively few) compromises that position involves than to try to pretend that lib dem policies like lords reform are somehow tory ones. voters know that marriage involves trade-offs.
保守党右派把这样的混乱归罪于联合政府和神经紧张的左倾自民党分子。这在很大程度上是不公平的：在自民党淡化国民保健服务改革之前很久，这一计划就已经过分复杂了；而且克莱格在减少赤字和抑制福利开销方面并未动摇。这也没有打中要害。保守党是联合政府的成员：如果他们能开诚布公地对待建立联合政府时达成的妥协（相对说来很少），那比把实际上是自民党的政策（例如上议院改革）故意说成是保守党的政策要强得多。联合政府的建立必定牵涉到利益的交换，这一点选民清楚。
the greatest worry is not the coalition, but mr cameron himself. a delegator by nature, he has stuck by the same tight circle of long-standing aides, even as the number of gaffes has risen. he needs people with better political antennae. more deeply, the competing instincts that run through his government—on the one hand, a bold, impatient desire to fix the state, on the other a deep, almost genetic comfort with life at the apex of the british establishment—co-exist within the prime minister himself. hard government requires hard decisions. so far trimming and too-clever-by-half evasions have been found out every time, while radical clarity has paid off. mr cameron has had his warning; he should learn from it.
人们最大的担心并非联合政府，而是卡梅伦本人。他很信任下属的工作，但长期以来一直依靠一小批助手，即使这些人错误越犯越多也不放弃。实际上他需要一些政治上更敏感的人的襄助。更深刻地说，在他的政府中渗透着两种相互竞争的本能，一种是要尽快地大胆改进政府的渴望，另一种是对在英国统治层顶端生活的那种深刻的、几乎与生俱来的享受感，这两种本能在首相本人的身上共存。艰难时刻的政府需要做出艰难的决定。迄今为止，政府在每次面临困境时所用的修补办法和自作聪明的回避方针都未能奏效，最终起作用的还是从根本上直截了当的做法。卡梅伦已经得到警示了；前事不忘，后事之师，他应该接受教训了。