Last, do no harm

How Gordon Brown and the Labour Party should use their last months in power
戈登布朗及工党应如何利用掌权的最后几个月

Reuters

TWO syndromes often beset governments whose time is almost up. One is listlessness and drift, as discipline crumbles, morale plummets and ideas dry up. Conversely, some moribund administrations embrace desperate hyperactivity to stave off their doom. Gordon Brown and his Labour government, facing probable defeat in the general election that must be held in Britain by next June, have alternately exhibited both these contradictory tendencies. But there is a course between them, and a respectable way for Labour to spend what are likely to be the last six months of a 13-year stint in office: confront the fiscal predicament it has helped to create, and pursue those worthwhile policies it has already got.
任期即将结束的政府常常会被两种状况所困扰。其一是由于纪律瓦解、士气下降、思想枯竭而引起的迟缓低迷。相反，另一些即将离任的政府则具有回光返照的活力可以延迟劫数的到来。可能会在明年一月的英国大选中面对失败的布朗及工党政府交替展现出了这两种矛盾的倾向。但是在这两者之间有一段过程，工党可以以一种体面的方式度过可能是其十三年执政期的最后六个月：直面自己促成的财政困境，实行现行的有价值的政策。

Labour has entered a strange political netherworld. It is not yet out of government; what it does still matters. But it is not altogether in power either. Its limbo status was dramatised in the Queen’s Speech on November 18th, a fancy-dress event that sets out the legislative programme (see article). No one believes Labour will have time to pass all the bills the queen enumerated. Much of the speech waspointless posturing.
工党现在陷入了一个政治怪圈当中——它并未下野，其所作所为依然重要，但是又没有完全掌权。这种动荡状况在女王十一月八日的演讲中十分明显。此次演讲是一袭华丽外衣下阐释立法计划的活动。大家都认为工党没有时间来通过女王所罗列的所有法案。演讲的大部分只是无意义的故作姿态。

In parts, however, it fitted a soak-the-rich pattern that began to emerge with the creation of a new top rate of income tax (to take effect next year), continued in Mr Brown’s abortive proposal of a financial-transactions tax and was visible in this week’s misguided attempt to control bankers’ bonuses (see article). Some in the Labour Party applaud these moves, seeing the final months in power as a chance to redeem years of timidity in a belated surge of social-democratic activism, emboldened by the resentful, banker-bashing public mood. Governing in this spirit in their limbo period might suit some Labour politicians—but it risks harming the country, by discouraging enterprise and driving wealth-creators away.
然而，从某种程度上来说，工党符合了一种淹死富人的模式。这种模式随着即将于明年生效的创造新高的所得税税率一起出现，于布朗失败的金融交易税提案中得以继续，在本周控制银行家奖金的误导性尝试中可见一斑。工党中有些人欢迎这些行动，把执政的最后几个月看成是在迟来的社会民主活动高潮中救赎其多年来胆小怕事的一个契机。最近这种社会民主活动由于公众抵触、抨击银行家的情绪而得到了增强。在工党动荡时期能够控制住这种情绪正中一些工党政客的下怀，但是这会有伤害到国家的风险，因为控制这种情绪会对企业造成打击，流失财富创造者。

That is one temptation that Mr Brown should resist. Another is to say little more about how he proposes to reduce Britain’s deficit; the “fiscal responsibility bill” in the Queen’s Speech was a headline, not a plan. It matters to Britain’s financial credibility that Mr Brown has one, even if he never implements it. And it is in every party’s interests to prepare the country for the coming fiscal retrenchment. In the chancellor’s pre-budget report on December 9th—in reality a more important occasion than this week’s pageant—the government must be franker about where public spending might be cut.
这是布朗需要抵制的一个倾向之一，另一个倾向是对他将如何减少英国财政赤字不做表示；女王演讲中的“财政责任法案”只是一个标题，不是一个计划。此事关系到英国的金融信用；虽然从未执行过，但是布朗拥有这种信用。让全国对即将到来的财政紧缩做好准备符合各方利益。在财政大臣将于十二月九日做的前预算报告中（事实上是比本周的盛典更为重要的场合），政府必须对将在哪方面削减开支更加坦率。

Hippocratic, not hypocritical
治病救人，不要惺惺作态

But Labour could still manage some positive accomplishments too. Not by announcing pie-in-the-sky ambitions to make the lion lie down with the lamb by 2020; rather it should step up efforts to implement some of its existing policies. Welfare and education have been two of the biggest disappointments of the Labour era. But it at last has a credible idea of how to reduce Britain’s 5m-strong welfare rolls, by using private firms to help people trade benefits for wages. And, in its academies programme, it has a policy that has begun to improve secondary education. It should doggedly press ahead with both.
工党仍旧可以设法得到一些褒奖，但不是通过宣布遥不可及的雄心壮志让好人和坏人到2020年的时候能和平相处，而是应该继续加速实施一些现行的政策。福利和教育是工党执政时代最令人失望之处中的两个。但是通过运用私企来帮助人们以利易资，对于如何减少英国五百万之大的福利名单工党已经最终得出了一个可信的想法，而且，在院校计划上也有了一个推广二级教育的政策。工党应该坚定不移地推进这两个政策。

Another existing commitment that Mr Brown must concentrate on is the conflict in Afghanistan. Although, for much of his premiership, Mr Brown seemed to regard it as an encumbrance he reluctantly inherited from his gung-ho predecessor, he has recently made a better fist of explaining Britain’s bloody deployment in Helmand. All the same, Britons increasingly regard the war as unwinnable. While British troops remain in Afghanistan, Mr Brown must ensure that they have a feasible goal and the kit they need to achieve it, and that the public understands why they are fighting and dying there.
布朗必须重视的另一个许下的承诺是阿富汗冲突。虽然在其任总理的大部分时间里，布朗似乎把阿富汗问题看成是他不情不愿地从雄心勃勃的前任手中接过的一个包袱，但是，近来对于英国在赫尔曼德的血腥部署，布朗还是给出了一个较好的解释。英国人依旧越发地认为这场战争没有胜算。英国依然有军队在阿富汗，布朗必须确保他们有一个可行的目标和完成这一目标所需的装备，还要确保公众能够理解他们为什么要在那里战斗与牺牲。

That ought to be enough. It is sometimes said that the Conservative opposition is seeking a “doctor’s mandate” from the electorate—that is, permission to perform the painful excisions that the public finances require. Mr Brown, who became prime minister through an internal party stitch-up and is flatlining in the polls, has a different, humbler sort of doctor’s remit. It is a negative one: last, do no harm.
这些就应该足够了。据说其对手保守党正在从全体选民中寻求一种“医生命令”，即，进行公共金融所需的痛苦手术的许可。布朗通过党内修复成为总理，现在支持率平平，他的医生职权比较不同，比较卑微。这种职权是比较消极的一个：以至最后，勿再伤害。