经济学人下载:捉摸不透的财政大臣

Still, grasping the differences between the two men is crucial to understanding how the government works. The contrast between Mr Osborne, a lifelong metropolitan, and Mr Cameron, a son of the rural home counties, is often said to lie in the former’s social liberalism. But Mr Osborne is more liberal on moral issues such as abortion and gay rights than on law and order. And on foreign policy, Mr Cameron would get an easier ride at a trendy London dinner party than hawkish Mr Osborne.

即便如此，搞清楚这两人之间的不同对于了解政府的运作是必不可少的。奥斯本和卡梅隆的不同之处在于奥斯本主张社会自由主义：奥斯本在大城市里出生长大，而卡梅隆则来自农村地区的一个小县城。但是比起法制问题，奥斯本在许多道德问题上比如堕胎和同性恋权利方面更倾向于自由。在外交政策上，假如卡梅隆和鹰派作风的奥斯本共同出席一场伦敦的时尚宴会的话，卡梅隆可能会更受欢迎。

The real difference between them lies in their approach to politics. Mr Osborne is obsessed with winning. He is less moved by abstract ideas such as the “Big Society”. He is more inclined to belligerence towards political opponents, whether they be trade unions or the Labour Party. Some Tories think they would now be governing alone had Mr Osborne run last year’s election campaign by himself.

他们两人最根本的区别在于从政之道。奥斯本渴望胜利。他对于一些类似于“大社会”之类的抽象理念不那么感兴趣。对于政治对手，他更愿意“奉陪到底”， 不论是工会还是工党。一些保守党人认为要是去年的大选由奥斯本来参选的话，现在他们已经单独掌权了。

This hunger for victory comes from tasting multiple defeats as an adviser. Mr Cameron at least worked on the Tories’ triumphant 1992 election campaign (Mr Osborne was still a student) and took a sojourn in business during the party’s dog days later in the 1990s (Mr Osborne never left Westminster). The chancellor clocked that the Tories needed to soften their right-wing image long before Mr Cameron did.

这种对于胜利的渴望来自他担任顾问期间多次的失败经历。至少，卡梅隆在1992保守党大选胜出时有所作为（当时奥斯本还是学生），之后在90年代末期保守党光景惨淡时还短暂从商（奥斯本从未走出西敏斯特）。这位财政大臣曾经抨击保守党人告诫他们需要淡化自身的右倾形象。这一主张远早于卡梅隆。

In his economics, however, Mr Osborne is an old-fashioned Conservative. His free-market instincts sometimes show; he once flirted with the idea of a “flat”, rather than progressive, income tax. He has been restrained in punishing the banking sector for its part in the financial crisis.

但是在经济方面，奥斯本则是老派保守党作风。他有时会展现出自己骨子里对自由市场的支持。他曾经尝试以“固定”所得税代替累进所得税。在惩罚银行在金融危机中扮演的角色时，他表现得十分克制持重。

But, when it comes to the public finances, Mr Osborne is a sober fiscal hawk rather than a gung-ho Reaganite tax-cutter. Perhaps his best judgment came in opposition, in the period before the financial crash, when he resisted calls from the right to promise an overall tax cut. The subsequent crisis vindicated him, but Britain’s relapse into negative growth in the last quarter has brought new demands for tax cuts, or, from the left, slower spending cuts. Voters are worried, as our poll shows.

但是，涉及到公共财政时，奥斯本是一个头脑清醒的财务鹰派人士，而不是激进的里根式减税者。可能恰恰是在反对减税上，他做出了最明智的决定：在金融危机的前夕，他顶住右翼要求整体减税的呼声。随后的金融危机证实了他的英明所在。但是英国经济在去年最后一个季度再次陷入负增长，减税之诉求卷土重来，左翼则号召缩减开支。正如我们的民意测验所显示的那样，选民们现在有些担忧。

Committed as he is to austerity, in his budget Mr Osborne is likelier to reform taxes than to cut them. That commitment is a political as well as an economic gamble: a double-dip, or even prolonged slow growth, would wound him. The economy will determine whether his credibility keeps soaring, or has already peaked.

尽管他致力于财政紧缩，但是在预算中奥斯本更有可能改革而不是减少税收。这种努力既是一场政治赌博，也是一场经济冒险：若出现二次探底，甚至更长时期的缓慢增长，都会对他不利。经济的起伏将决定他的信誉是继续飙升，还是就此打住。