【经济学人】白芝浩专栏：科尔宾，人生巅峰？！ [英国媒体]

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Peak Corbyn  

科尔宾，人生巅峰？！

There are reasons to think the Corbyn bubble may not burst soon

有理由相信，科尔宾泡沫或许将不会很快破灭



Aug 10th 2017
JEREMY CORBYN may have lost the general election but his cult grows, regardless. There are Corbyn T-shirts all over the place, as well as more exotic items of clothing: David Cameron, Britain’s former prime minister, was photographed at a pop festival, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, half-embracing a female reveller who was wearing a cape with Corbyn’s name on the back, encircled by a heart. A mural of his face can be found in Islington. Siobhan Freegard, the founder of channelmum.com, reports that “Corbyn is the stand-out naming trend this year”, with 50% of parents saying they would be willing to consider naming their child after the MP for Islington North.

6月的大选，杰里米·科尔宾输了结果，但赢得了人心。到处都是印有科尔宾名字的T恤，当然还夹杂着一些离奇的事情：前首相大卫·卡梅伦在一个音乐节上被拍到，他一手拿一杯饮料，一手点着一根香烟，半拥着一位女郎，女郎穿着一件印有科尔宾名字，且名字被一颗爱心所环绕的斗篷；在科尔宾所在的伊斯林顿选区，悬挂着他的一幅巨大头像照；亲子网站“妈妈频道”的创办者西沃恩·福里加德称，今年以“科尔宾”这个名字命名的新生儿呈爆发的趋势，50%的家长认为，他们愿意考虑将新生儿以科尔宾的名字命名。

（译者注：卡梅伦照片见下图）


  
The great question of British politics is whether this is too much of a good thing. Is this adulation a bubble that will burst, leaving trustafarians with embarrassing bits of clothing and children with awkward names? Or is it the British equivalent of the posters and T-shirts that proliferated before Barack Obama’s first victory? There are good psephological reasons for thinking that Labour’s 40% score in June might be a high-water mark. The Conservative campaign was about as bad as you can get, a presidential effort with a nothing at its heart. Lots of people voted for Mr Corbyn precisely because they did not think he could win. They wanted to curtail Theresa May’s “Brexit means Brexit” triumphalism, not install a far-leftist in Downing Street.

上述这些现象，究竟对英国的政局是否是件好事，要打个大大的问号。科尔宾的走红会不会是一场镜花水月，终将如泡沫般破碎，留给吹捧他的信托自由儿们一地鸡毛？或者说英国也会步美国后尘，如奥巴马当选一样，海报和T恤衫的大量兴起是科尔宾会赢的前兆？ 根据选举统计学，大选中工党40%的选票可能来自于新选民，因为保守党的纲领实在是要多糟糕有多糟糕，完全是为了选举而选举，毫无实质内容。许多人破罐破摔投给工党恰恰是因为他们觉得科尔宾不可能赢，他们只是想表达对梅姨所谓霸气侧漏的“脱欧就是脱欧”口号的不满，并不是想要让一个带有极左份子上台

（译者注：信托自由儿这个词原意是指靠着有钱的父母留下的信托基金可以衣食无忧，但却产生嬉皮士倾向的富二代年轻人，本文中作者用这个词有着很强烈的倾向，意思是年轻人只是觉得无聊所以投票给科尔宾）

There are also signs that Mr Corbyn’s Teflon coating is wearing thin. On August 7th he returned from a cycling holiday in Croatia to face a barrage of questions about Venezuela. Why is a country that he once praised as a land of milk and honey turning into a giant gulag? Why had he said nothing while the regime beat and killed dissenters? Mr Corbyn eventually broke his silence only to say he condemned violence on “all sides”, seemingly oblivious to his own recent tweet that “If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” This came on the heels of two other embarrassments. He back-pedalled on his promise to forgive all past student loans on the ground that, even in Labour’s free-spending Britain, writing off ￡100bn might be a bit irresponsible. And he clashed with the pro-European wing of his party when he insisted that Britain would leave the single market when it left the European Union.

有许多现象表明，科尔宾的无敌光环正在褪去。8月7号，自克罗地亚骑行度假归来后，他被接二连三地问到关于委内瑞拉的问题，为什么一个曾经被他称赞为“鱼米之乡”的国家变成了一个大劳改营？为什么他对委内瑞拉残酷打击甚至杀害异见人士视而不见？科尔宾最终只是不痛不痒的说了几句”他谴责各方采用暴力手段“的官话，发了条推特：”如果你身受压迫而保持沉默，那么你等于是在助长压迫者的气焰“，在这之前还发生过两件让他尴尬的事：其一，在大选中他承诺免除所有往期学生的助学贷款，现在他又出尔反尔了，理由是哪怕工党上台，施行宽松的开支政策，也不可能把1000亿英镑的账单一笔勾销。其二，他与工党中的亲欧份子在欧洲单一市场问题上有分歧，他认为英国在脱欧后应该离开单一市场

（译者注：关于科尔宾承诺免除助学贷款一事，当时科尔宾在大选中的原话是“abolish current student tution fee”，即免除现在处于就读状态的学生的助学贷款，并不是指将过去几十年所有学生所欠未还的贷款全部一笔勾销，因为current这个词存在歧义，《经济学人》在这里旧事重提，暗指科尔宾欺骗学生选民，再次可以看出《经济学人》的立场具有很强烈的倾向性）

Further skeletons lurk in Mr Corbyn’s closet. He has spent his life forgiving people their nastiness so long as they are hostile to the Great Satan of the United States. And there are more potential fissures in his coalition. The sort of people who ooh over him at Glastonbury will start aahing if their taxes rocket. But anyone inclined to think that Britain is approaching peak Corbyn or even that, as Country Squire Magazine, a website, argues, “peak Corbyn has passed”, should consider three things.

科尔宾的黑历史远不止这些，他曾经对恐怖分子的所作所为表示同情，只要这些恐怖分子与所谓“邪恶撒旦”的美国作对，另外科尔宾的工党内部也不是铁板一块，那些在格拉斯顿伯里音乐节上向他欢呼的人们，马上就会开始叫苦连天，因为一旦科尔宾上台，他们要交的税会如坐火箭一般上升。尽管有着种种黑点，许多人都倾向认为，英国正在迎来科尔宾的巅峰时代，但即便如此，仍有一家名为《乡贤杂志社》的网站，以下三点理由，驳斥了“科尔宾巅峰已过”这种说法：

The first is that peak Corbyn will be determined by the Conservative Party rather than the Labour Party or Venezuela’s ruling elite. The Conservatives have been in power since 2010 either as the dominant party in a coalition or in their own right. Even in the best of times, voters tire of long-serving ruling parties, blaming them for everything from bad weather to noisy roadworks. These have not been the best of times. The Tories are far more divided than Labour over Brexit—in particular, their “ultras” are more extreme—and, as the party of government, their divisions will be more damaging both to themselves and to the country.

其一，科尔宾的崛起是保守党一手促成的，并不是工党或者国外敌对势力的功劳。或联合政府，或单独执政，自2010年来保守党上台已7年，哪怕是在其表现最好的时期，那些对长期执政党派感觉厌倦的选民们也会找各种借口怪罪政府，大到天气糟糕，小到道路施工太吵，更何况保守党的表现一直不佳，在脱欧的问题上，他们内部的分裂程度更甚于工党，一些极端主义者比其他党派显得更激进，作为执政党，保守党内部的纷争不仅伤害了自己，也伤害了国家。

Second, a few fiff-faffs over communist tyrants aside, Mr Corbyn is acquitting himself quite well as party leader. He is forcing Blairites and Brownites to bend the knee with a judicious mixture of promises of promotion and threats of a beating by his praetorian guard, Momentum. In June Labour humiliated Mrs May despite the fact that most of its MPs thought Mr Corbyn was leading them to disaster. Next time they will be more behind him. His refusal to operate a pairing system (whereby MPs from opposing parties agree to cancel each other out by abstaining from voting) shows a good understanding of guerrilla tactics. Tory MPs will have to turn up for every vote to save the government from defeat, becoming increasingly exhausted, tired and fractious, whereas opposition MPs will be able to pick their moments.

其次，与一些共产主义暴君的作派不同，科尔宾体现了极佳的领导风采，对工党中的布莱尔主义和布朗主义支持者，他聪明的选择了“又打击又拉拢”的策略，通过自己的近卫队“冲劲”组织，不断敲打对方，让其臣服。在6月的大选中，科尔宾狠狠地羞辱了特蕾莎·梅一把，尽管之前很多工党议员认为科尔宾会带领他们一败涂地，到下次大选，这些议员就会更多的支持他。在议会投票制度上，科尔宾拒绝采取兑子策略（现行规则下，敌对党派的议员间可以在投票时双双主动弃权，来互相抵消人数），表明了他非常擅长游击战术，保守党议员不得不每次投票都出席来确保议案得以通过，这样他们会变得越来越疲劳，精疲力尽而易怒，而工党等反对党议员可以以逸待劳。

The third reason is that a combination of economic forces, both long-term and short-term, favour Mr Corbyn. Brexit and its attendant uncertainties will further weaken Britain’s already weakening economy. That will give voters more incentive to punish the party that has “banged on” about Europe for decades and seems to be doing a dismal job of handling the divorce settlement. The hollowing out of the middle classes, as salaried workers see their jobs threatened by artificial intelligence and globalisation and their dreams of home ownership destroyed by rising property prices, is increasing the number of people who are sympathetic to Corbyn-style socialism.

最后的理由是，科尔宾的崛起得利于短期与长期的经济因素的结合。英国脱欧及其随之而来的不确定性，使得本已处于疲软不堪的经济更受打击，保守党过去几十年内一直把脱欧喋喋不休地挂在嘴边，事到临头却在处理脱欧问题上显示的各种不靠谱，让选民不得不有所举动来表达不满。另外，中产阶级的衰落，还有工薪阶层面临全球化和人工智能的威胁，住房梦被高的离谱的房价所摧毁，所有这一切都在使得越来越多的人赞同科尔宾式的社会主义主张

London pride

伦敦·骄傲

The clearest signs of this can be seen in the country’s most globalised city, London, where Labour has gained 11 seats since 2010. Having lost such previously deep-blue seats as Kensington and Battersea in the latest election, the Tories could easily lose Chingford & Woodford Green, where Iain Duncan Smith’s majority fell from 8,386 to 2,438, and Uxbridge & South Ruislip, where Boris Johnson’s majority fell from 10,695 to 5,034, in the next one.

上述种种迹象最明显的体现就在英国全球化程度最高的城市--伦敦，自2010年来工党在此获取了11个席位。在6月的大选中，保守党丢失了如肯辛顿和巴特西两个这样的传统选区，青福德和伍德福德选区也面临丢失的风险，伊恩·邓肯·史密斯的优势票数从8386票降低到了2438票，乌克斯桥和南莱斯利普选区也会步其后尘，鲍里斯·约翰逊的优势票数已从10695票降低到了5034票

Mr Corbyn also has perhaps the most important thing in politics on his side: the idea of “change” and “hope”. People are fed up with stagnant living standards. They are fed up with squabbling politicians. And they are fed up with the rich seeming to be held to different standards from the poor. The Tories are right to argue that this “changey-hopey” stuff is nonsense. Corbynism will make the country poorer, the infrastructure shoddier and political life more rancorous. But if they cannot go beyond criticising Mr Corbyn’s policies to offering a vision of a better future themselves, they might just as well whistle in the wind.

科尔宾身上或许存在着政治权术中最重要的东西：”变革“和”希望“的理念，人们已受够了生活水平停滞不前，受够了只会打嘴炮的政治家，受够了富人骑在穷人头上作威作福。保守党有理由认为，这种"变革-希望“之类的东西毫无意义，科尔宾主义只会让国家变得更穷，使国家根基动摇，朝纲败坏。但如果保守党对科尔宾的政策仅仅止步于批判，而不能许以人民一个更好的前景，他们也只不过是在浪费口舌罢了。