经济学人456:英国政治 幕后智者

 　　Books and Arts; Book Review

　　文艺；书评

　　British politics;Backroom boy

　　英国政治; 幕后智者

　　In the Corridors of Power: An Autobiography¹. By David Lipsey.

　　《自传：在权力走廊》：作者David Lipsey。

　　Political memoirs² generally do two things. The first is to set the record straight. The second is to justify³ the writer's own career, arguing causes that have long since been lost, or won by others. David Lipsey's book is admirably long on the first, though not devoid⁴ of the second.

　　政治回忆录通常起二个作用。其一：说明事实，以正视听；其二：对早年的失败或他人的成功进行解释，从而为自己的职业生涯进行辩护。在这部书中，David Lipsey不惜笔墨说明事实，但同时亦不乏自我辩护。

　　Lord Lipsey, a Labour man to the core, has been at or near the political coalface since the early 1970s. At 24 he became special political adviser⁵ (the term, like the job, barely existed at the time) to Tony Crosland, a leader of the social-democratic faction⁶ of the Labour Party who became foreign secretary and was the dominant⁷ intellectual figure of his political generation. Young Lipsey fell under his spell, and no one—certainly not Jim Callaghan, the beleaguered⁸ prime minister for whom he worked after Crosland's early death—ever really measured up.

　　Lipsey勋爵作为一名实实在在的工党人，从二十世纪七十年代早期起就要么在政治工作面上忙碌，要么也从事着相应的工作。24岁时，他成了Tony Crosland的“特别政治顾问”（当时政治顾问一词就像其所指代的职务一样根本不存在）——Tony当时是工党社会民主派的领袖，后来担任了外交大臣，属于他这一代政治人物中举足轻重的知识分子。年轻的Lipsey被Crosland的魅力征服，Crosland之后也没人——当然，也不可能是四面楚歌的Jim Callaghan总理，在Crosland早逝后，Lipsey在他手下服务——能真正符合Lipsey的标准。

　　As backroom special advisers⁹ do now, the author wrote speeches, drafted and redrafted policy papers, and negotiated electoral manifestos, all the while observing the foibles of his front-of-stage bosses. In what is clearly the emotional heart of the book, he chronicles the turbulence¹⁰ surrounding the decline and fall of Old Labour, the fight against the hard left, the economic debacle of the mid-1970s and the disastrous¹¹ election of 1979—all with a keen eye for strategy and personality. There is delight in small details: the chill that settled on a lunch party when the young jobseeker had the temerity¹² to hit the croquet ball of Roy Jenkins, a Labour grandee¹³, into the flower bed, or Crosland's views on the inanities¹⁴ of ambassadors' wives.

　　就像如今幕后特别顾问所从事的工作一样，作者当时也写演讲稿，对政策文件起草了又起草，协商选举宣言，同时观察着台上领袖的缺点。运用自己对策略和人性的敏锐感，他在编年史内写下老工党衰退和倒台那段时期的骚乱，反左派的斗争，也记录下二十世纪七十年代中期的经济崩溃，1979年那场极糟的选举。有些细节很明了：在午餐会上一名年轻的求职者鲁莽地把工党贵族Roy Jenkins的槌球打进了花圃里的事，亦或是Crosland关于大使夫人的浅薄方面的一些言论。

　　When the door of Number 10 slammed shut in 1979, Lord Lipsey turned to journalism¹⁵ to earn his crust, notably¹⁶ at the Times and The Economist¹⁷. He left the latter for the House of Lords in 1999 after Labour regained¹⁸ power. Further than before from the inside story, he nonetheless remained a backroom boy in a sense, beavering away in the upper chamber¹⁹ and on official commissions to review such hard-to-sort subjects as electoral reform and social care for the elderly. Though neither produced the results he wanted, his insights into how policy is made are revealing. As he tells it, the knock-down-drag-out fights over these matters (his gonads were threatened by a fellow member of the social-care commission) were no less vicious than the fight to control the Labour Party in the 1970s.

　　1979年当10号大门砰然阖上时，Lord Lipsey为了谋生转投了新闻业，他甚至为《泰晤士报》与《经济学人》都工作过。1999年工党重新积蓄力量之后，他离开了《经济学人》，前往上议院。故事以往不曾有的是，他却在某种意义上一直处在幕后，为上议院和官方委员会辛勤的工作，回顾那些难以排序的事件（比如选举改革，或是老年人的社会福利）。纵然他没去创造他想要的结果，但他关于政治应该如何进行的见解还是有启迪作用的。正如他自己说的那样，上个世纪七十年代企图控制工党的斗争和在这些问题（曾有社保委员会的同僚威胁他的性腺）上的激烈斗争是一样邪恶的。

　　There are ways in which this well-written book could have been better. It follows the author out of politics and into the newspaper industry for a couple of decades. As a result, the reader hears almost nothing about the walkout of the “gang of four” (Jenkins, David Owen, William Rogers and Shirley Williams) and the transformation²⁰ of the Labour Party. Yet these are precisely²¹ the sorts of issues that animate²² the first third of the book, and without them the last third is less enlightening than it might have been. At times Lord Lipsey seems to take disproportionate umbrage²³ against people: Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, is ferociously²⁴ raked over the coals for mishandling the referendum on the alternative vote, for example. And yet he has a disarming²⁵ willingness to admit his personal limitations: his own work on voting reform “must rank the greatest failure among a number of failures in my political life”.

　　这本文笔好的书原本可以写得更好的。它记录了作者离开政坛，进入报业呆了几十个年头的经历。因此，读者难以查阅四人帮（Jenkins, David Owen, William Rogers and Shirley Williams）的倒台，也读不到工党的变化。但是这些俨然是推动此书前三分之一的那些问题。Lord Lipsey有时似乎会对人们发无名火：比如代理总理Nick Clegg没好好处理关于可选择能源的公民投票，因煤炭的事被他狠狠的痛骂了一顿。然而令人舒缓的是，他承认自己的个人不足之处：关于他选举改革方面的工作，“在我政治生涯里的数个错误中，这个必定是最大的错误”。

　　Through the years, Lord Lipsey says his ideas have remained broadly constant, while the political landscape has changed dramatically. “I, once regarded as a proto-fascist in Labour circles for my right-wing views, am now a dangerous leftie, without having changed my mind much on much.” Class has declined as the central divide in British politics. Partly in consequence, parties have become far less ideological²⁶. Politics these days is about what works. And a new professional political class is ever more cut off from the people who send its members to Westminster. What better sign of the times than this: former backroom-boy Lipsey rose to the dizzying heights of running the British Greyhound Racing²⁷ Board, whereas another former special adviser, David Cameron, younger by almost 20 years, is running the country.

　　这些年，Lipsey勋爵表示，纵然政治版图已戏剧化的改变，他的观点大致还是不变。“我，因我右翼的言论，一度被认为是工党圈里的早期法西斯人士。我现在是一名危险的左翼分子，我的观点还是没有改得太多。”英国政局的重要分化使得社会等级变得越来越不重要。所以不完全地说，政党的意识形态越来越薄弱了。这段时间的政治就是政治所要做的工作。而且一个新的专业的政治阶层也从一些人中分离出去了——这些人是向议会输送成员的人。比这个前兆更好的一点是：前幕后指挥Lipsey上升到了一个令人难以理解的高度——管理英国赛狗委员会——然而比他年轻二十岁的前特别顾问David Cameron，正在管理这个国家。

1 autobiography   

n.自传

参考例句：

• He published his autobiography last autumn.他去年秋天出版了自己的自传。
• His life story is recounted in two fascinating volumes of autobiography.这两卷引人入胜的自传小说详述了他的生平。

2 memoirs   

n.回忆录；回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数)

参考例句：

• Her memoirs were ghostwritten. 她的回忆录是由别人代写的。
• I watched a trailer for the screenplay of his memoirs. 我看过以他的回忆录改编成电影的预告片。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 justify   

vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护

参考例句：

• He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
• Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗？

4 devoid   

adj.全无的，缺乏的

参考例句：

• He is completely devoid of humour.他十分缺乏幽默。
• The house is totally devoid of furniture.这所房子里什么家具都没有。

5 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

6 faction   

n.宗派，小集团；派别；派系斗争

参考例句：

• Faction and self-interest appear to be the norm.派系之争和自私自利看来非常普遍。
• I now understood clearly that I was caught between the king and the Bunam's faction.我现在完全明白自己已陷入困境，在国王与布纳姆集团之间左右为难。

7 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

8 beleaguered   

adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰

参考例句：

• The beleaguered party leader was forced to resign. 那位饱受指责的政党领导人被迫辞职。
• We are beleaguered by problems. 我们被许多困难所困扰。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 advisers   

顾问，劝告者( adviser的名词复数 )； （指导大学新生学科问题等的）指导教授

参考例句：

• a member of the President's favoured circle of advisers 总统宠爱的顾问班子中的一员
• She withdrew to confer with her advisers before announcing a decision. 她先去请教顾问然后再宣布决定。

10 turbulence   

n.喧嚣，狂暴，骚乱，湍流

参考例句：

• The turbulence caused the plane to turn over.空气的激流导致飞机翻转。
• The world advances amidst turbulence.世界在动荡中前进。

11 disastrous   

adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的

参考例句：

• The heavy rainstorm caused a disastrous flood.暴雨成灾。
• Her investment had disastrous consequences.She lost everything she owned.她的投资结果很惨，血本无归。

12 temerity   

n.鲁莽，冒失

参考例句：

• He had the temerity to ask for higher wages after only a day's work.只工作了一天，他就蛮不讲理地要求增加工资。
• Tins took some temerity,but it was fruitless.这件事做得有点莽撞，但结果还是无用。

13 grandee   

n.贵族；大公

参考例句：

• He is a former defence secretary of the United States and a grandee of the Democratic Party.他是美国前国防部长，也是民主党的显要人物。
• The highest-ranking member of the spanish aristocracy is the grandee.西班牙贵族中爵位最高的成员乃是大公。

14 inanities   

n.空洞( inanity的名词复数 )；浅薄；愚蠢；空洞的言行

参考例句：

15 journalism   

n.新闻工作，报业

参考例句：

• He's a teacher but he does some journalism on the side.他是教师，可还兼职做一些新闻工作。
• He had an aptitude for journalism.他有从事新闻工作的才能。

16 notably   

adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地

参考例句：

• Many students were absent,notably the monitor.许多学生缺席，特别是连班长也没来。
• A notably short,silver-haired man,he plays basketball with his staff several times a week.他个子明显较为矮小，一头银发，每周都会和他的员工一起打几次篮球。

17 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

18 regained   

复得( regain的过去式和过去分词 )； 赢回； 重回； 复至某地

参考例句：

• The majority of the people in the world have regained their liberty. 世界上大多数人已重获自由。
• She hesitated briefly but quickly regained her poise. 她犹豫片刻，但很快恢复了镇静。

19 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

20 transformation   

n.变化；改造；转变

参考例句：

• Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
• He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。

21 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

22 animate   

v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的

参考例句：

• We are animate beings,living creatures.我们是有生命的存在，有生命的动物。
• The girls watched,little teasing smiles animating their faces.女孩们注视着，脸上挂着调皮的微笑，显得愈加活泼。

23 umbrage   

n.不快；树荫

参考例句：

• Everything gives umbrage to a tyrantny.所有事情都使专制君主生气。
• She took umbrage at my remarks about her hair.我对她头发的评论使她很不高兴。

24 ferociously   

野蛮地，残忍地

参考例句：

• The buck shook his antlers ferociously. 那雄鹿猛烈地摇动他的鹿角。
• At intervals, he gritted his teeth ferociously. 他不时狠狠的轧平。

25 disarming   

adj.消除敌意的，使人消气的v.裁军( disarm的现在分词 )；使息怒

参考例句：

• He flashed her a disarming smile. 他朝她笑了一下，让她消消气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We will agree to disarming troops and leaving their weapons at military positions. 我们将同意解除军队的武装并把武器留在军事阵地。 来自辞典例句

26 ideological   

a.意识形态的

参考例句：

• He always tries to link his study with his ideological problems. 他总是把学习和自己的思想问题联系起来。
• He helped me enormously with advice on how to do ideological work. 他告诉我怎样做思想工作，对我有很大帮助。

27 racing   

n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的

参考例句：

• I was watching the racing on television last night.昨晚我在电视上看赛马。
• The two racing drivers fenced for a chance to gain the lead.两个赛车手伺机竞相领先。