2020年经济学人 白芝浩专栏--失去控制(2)（在线收听）

But fear and charisma only work so long as they are accompanied by competence. The backbenchers who once feared Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings are now more worried about the fury of their own constituents. There is talk of emperors without clothes and wizards behind the curtain. The ministers Mr Johnson demotdemoted in his early months may now have a chance for revenge.

但是恐惧和魅力只有伴随着能力才能发挥作用。曾经害怕约翰逊和卡明斯的后排议员现在更担心自己选民的愤怒。有人说是没有衣服的皇帝和幕后的巫师。约翰逊早年降职的部长们现在可能有机会复仇了。

Downing Street has woken up to the fact that it has a partymanagement problem on its hands and is making an effort to hold more meetings with backbenchers and ministerial assistants. The “town hall” faction in Downing Street—people who worked with Mr Johnson when he was mayor of London, led by Sir Eddie Lister— are much more emollient than Mr Cummings. The whips should regain some power when they can do their arm-twisting in person rather than over Zoom. The leadership can also take some comfort from the fact that, despite much bad news, the nine polls taken since June 1st show the Tories leading Labour by between two and eight points.

唐宁街已经意识到它手头上有一个党派管理问题，正在努力与后排议员和部长助理举行更多的会议。唐宁街的“市政厅”派系——在约翰逊担任伦敦市长时曾与他共事，由艾迪·李斯特爵士领导——比卡明斯温和得多。当鞭子可以亲自施加力量而不是通过缩放时，它们应该能重新获得一些力量。尽管有很多坏消息，但自6月1日以来进行的9次民意调查显示，保守党领先工党2至8个百分点，这也让领导层感到欣慰。

But righting the ship will be difficult. The public’s growing distrust of the powers-that-be has been exacerbated by the progression from simple messages (“don’t go out”) to more nuanced ones (“be aware”), and there are plenty of timber-shaking covid storms on the horizon. Unemployment could surge to over 3m when the furlough scheme winds down. Britain’s poor performance is becoming painfully obvious as locked-down Britons watch images of continentals relaxing in cafes and returning to work.

但是要把船扶正是很困难的。从简单的信息(“不要出去”)到更细微的信息(“要注意”)，公众对权力的日益不信任加剧了，而且地平线上还有大量摇晃木材的新冠肺炎风暴。休假计划结束后，失业率可能会飙升至300万以上。随着被封锁的英国人观看大陆人在咖啡馆放松并重返工作岗位的画面，英国糟糕的表现变得明显而痛苦。

More and more people worry that Mr Johnson was brought in to solve one problem—getting Brexit done—but is now confronted with an entirely different one. A Cabinet that was selected on the basis of ideological soundness rather than competence seems overwhelmed by events. Two figures, Gavin Williamson, the education secretary who has blown hot and cold over whether children can go back to school, and Robert Jenrick, the local-government minister, who is entangled in a scandal with an insalubrious party donor, look particularly dismal. Mr Cummings’s formidable skills in running campaigns have not translated to governing the country. You can’t gaslight a pandemic.

越来越多的人担心约翰逊之前只要解决英国脱欧这一个问题，但现在却面临一个完全不同的问题。一个基于意识形态而非能力的内阁似乎被各种事件所压倒。教育部长加文·威廉森对孩子们能否重返学校的问题争论不休，当地政府部长罗伯特·詹里克与一名不健康的捐赠者陷入丑闻，这两名人员看起来特别令人沮丧。卡明斯在竞选活动中的强大技能并没有转化为治理国家。你不能阻止疫情。