经济学人下载:工党的下坡路 背离大路

The Labour Party's funk
工党的下坡路

Running out of road
背离大路

Labour is an increasingly unpopular party with lots of popular policies
工党政策广受称赞，自己却日益遭嫌

IF POLITICAL platforms were the sum of their parts, the Labour Party would tower over its rivals. In recent months Ed Miliband, its leader, has produced several overwhelmingly popular policies. According to YouGov, a polling firm, voters support the party's plan to increase the top rate of income tax by three to one. By about the same margin they like its talk of tackling dodgy landlords, blocking foreign takeovers of British firms and boosting the minimum wage.
如果政治舞台是所有因素的综合体，那么工党必称霸政坛。近几个月，工党党首埃德·米利班德提出了几条非常受欢迎的政策。根据民调机构YouGov的数据显示，工党提高所得税最高税率的计划，得到选民支持的比率为三比一。但也有同样比例的选民支持政府对付狡猾的房东，限制外资收购英国企业，并且提高最低工资标准。

Yet Labour's polling lead over the Conservative Party is slipping. According to YouGov it has fallen from an average of seven points in November to two-and-a-half points in May so far. It is quite possible that the populist right-wing UK Independence Party will beat Labour to first place in elections to the European Parliament on May 22nd (see next story). Not long ago Labour staffers were confidently describing the European vote as a dry run for the general election, due to be held in a year's time.
然而工党领先保守党的优势正在慢慢缩小。根据YouGov的数据显示，从去年平均领先7个百分点，滑落到今年五月的2.5个百分点。在5月22日的欧洲议会选举上，民粹主义右翼独立党极有可能干掉工党，夺得头筹（详见专文）。不久之前，工党的工作人员言之凿凿地把欧洲议会的表决，形容成一年之后大选的预演。

Labour, then, is an increasingly unloved party with increasingly popular policies. What explains this? The familiar answer is to blame the messenger. Mr Miliband struggles to appeal to voters through the mass media, often coming across as pleading and uncomfortable. His team have hired a broadcast expert and David Axelrod, who helped Barack Obama win two presidential elections, to improve their man's performance and messages. A series of awkward interviews in the run up to the European vote suggested that both would have their work cut out.
渐渐的，工党成了一个政策越来越受欢迎，而本身却越来越不是受欢迎的政党。怎么解释这个现象？答案都是相似的：都是信使惹的祸。米利班德努力试图借助大众传媒来笼络民心，常常会流露出恳求和不安。他的团队已经聘请了一个广播专家和戴维·阿克塞尔罗德美化其个人形象，促进其思想的传播。而戴维·阿克塞尔罗德是奥巴马总统的顾问，帮他连任了两届大选。但从他在欧洲大选前那几场采访中尴尬的表现来看，上述两目标恐怕是要泡汤了。

But that problem is older than Labour's poll slump. Instead, three things seem to account for the party's recent woes. The specific one is that Labour's propaganda machine is not working. Policy announcements have been rushed, too close together and quickly forgotten for lack of follow-up, sighs one Milibandite. A pledge to cut waiting times for doctors' appointments was a case in point: unveiled with great fanfare on May 12th, it was not once mentioned by Mr Miliband in Prime Minister's Questions just two days later. Sometimes messages clash. Labour's response to UKIP has ranged from cool dismissal to angry denouncement. An execrable electoral video depicting the Liberal Democrats as the gullible stooges of evil Tory toffs collided head-on with Mr Miliband's talk of making politics less petty.
但是问题远比工党支持率滑坡来的历史久远。相反，有三件事似乎可以解释工党最近的不振。尤其是因为工党的宣传不起作用。一位米利班德支持者叹道，政治宣传太过急躁，政治结盟太过亲密，以及太快忘掉自己没什么跟随者。政府担保削减就医预约时间就是一个例子：政府的这个保证，在5月12日出台，颇受人民欢迎。仅仅两天之后，在首相问答环节上，米利班德就提到了这个问题。两方是不是会就这个问题进行交锋。针对英国独立党的问题，工党的回应介于冷冷的不予理会，与愤怒的公开谴责之间。拙劣的竞选视频把自民党描绘为上当的傀儡，夹在邪恶的保守党花花公子与米利班德正面交锋之间，而米利班德正致力于促使政策登上大台面。

A bigger problem is that Labour's central economic message, that the recovery is failing to lift living standards, is running out of road. Real wages are beginning to emerge from their long slump, making people feel, if not richer, at least not poorer. And Labour lacks a fall-back argument: the party has done little over the past years to dispel the reputation for spendthrift ineptitude that it acquired during the financial crisis. The Tories' lead over the opposition on economic competence has grown from two to 14 points in the past year.
工党还有一个更大的问题，那就是中央经济报文的作用已经穷途末路，变革没能使生活标准有所提高。实际工资正渐渐从漫长的经济不景气中复苏，使民众觉得：既然没有更富，那至少也没再穷下去。并且工党缺少备用方案：这些年来，面对经济危机中而得的愚笨浪子臭名，工党并未好好去改变。经济上，保守党领先其反对党，由去年的2%增至14%。

Finally, as the general election approaches, the main job of the opposition shifts from holding the government to account to proposing an alternative. But Labour's messages remain deeply negative and gloomy. It has repeatedly told people how much they are being ripped off by energy firms and other businesses, but has failed to put forward a hopeful vision of a prosperous Britain, grumble internal malcontents. Patrick Diamond, a former policy adviser to the party, adds that by taking advantage of public mistrust of business, Labour is at best telling voters what they already know (that the party cares about the little guy). At worst it risks alienating those working in the private sector.
最后，随着大选的临近，在野党的主要任务从把持政权，转变成了提出第二选择。但工党方面的消息仍旧非常负面和悲观。英国一些对现状不满的群众发牢骚道，人们被反复告知他们的钱被剥削的数额，而罪魁祸首就是能源企业和一些其他公司，但是人们并没有在经济繁荣的英国看到充满希望的前景。帕特里克·戴蒙德是一名前党内政策顾问，他补充道，通过利用公众对商业的不信任，工党最好还是告知选民自己所得到的消息（即政党很关注那个小人）。最糟糕也不过是承担与私营部门决裂的风险。

These three problems add up to one big one: although voters like the party's individual policies, they do not like the overall image that these convey. Until Labour corrects this, says Deborah Mattinson of Britain Thinks, a polling outfit, the gush of announcements may do it more harm than good. If people do not trust the party in the first place, she argues, they just see these as craven attempts to win their votes. The Conservatives, by contrast, can trade on their overall competence. “They are not out to please people,” one swing voter told Ms Mattinson, and “that means they can just get on with it.”
这三个问题加在一起，就成了一个大问题：虽然选民支持工党的独立政策，但对于整体形象的呈现却并不看好。狄波拉·马丁森来自调查机构Britain Thinks，她认为，除非工党修正了这些问题，不然各个声明的涌现只能帮倒忙。她认为，如果一开始民众就不信任政党，他们就会视这些软弱的努力只是为了赢得选票。相比之下，保守党可以好好利用他们的整体竞争力。一位摇摆不定的选民告诉狄波拉道，“他们并非试图讨好民众，这意味着他们只能继续进行下去。”