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.
但是恐懼和魅力只有伴隨著能力才能發(fā)揮作用。曾經害怕約翰遜和卡明斯的后排議員現在更擔心自己選民的憤怒。有人說是沒有衣服的皇帝和幕后的巫師。約翰遜早年降職的部長們現在可能有機會復仇了。
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.
唐寧街已經意識到它手頭上有一個黨派管理問題，正在努力與后排議員和部長助理舉行更多的會議。唐寧街的“市政廳”派系——在約翰遜擔任倫敦市長時曾與他共事，由艾迪·李斯特爵士領導——比卡明斯溫和得多。當鞭子可以親自施加力量而不是通過縮放時，它們應該能重新獲得一些力量。盡管有很多壞消息，但自6月1日以來進行的9次民意調查顯示，保守黨領先工黨2至8個百分點，這也讓領導層感到欣慰。
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難的。從簡單的信息(“不要出去”)到更細微的信息(“要注意”)，公眾對權力的日益不信任加劇了，而且地平線上還有大量搖晃木材的新冠肺炎風暴。休假計劃結束后，失業(yè)率可能會飆升至300萬以上。隨著被封鎖的英國人觀看大陸人在咖啡館放松并重返工作崗位的畫面，英國糟糕的表現變得明顯而痛苦。
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.
越來越多的人擔心約翰遜之前只要解決英國脫歐這一個問題，但現在卻面臨一個完全不同的問題。一個基于意識形態(tài)而非能力的內閣似乎被各種事件所壓倒。教育部長加文·威廉森對孩子們能否重返學校的問題爭論不休，當地政府部長羅伯特·詹里克與一名不健康的捐贈者陷入丑聞，這兩名人員看起來特別令人沮喪。卡明斯在競選活動中的強大技能并沒有轉化為治理國家。你不能阻止疫情。
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