对于一个不断在选举中失利的政党来说，保守党本周在伯明翰举行的党代会却异常振奋人心。这个曾强烈主张废除君主的政党，如今正团结一致地支持凯米·巴登诺奇。民意调查显示，这位领导人的个人支持率虽然不算惊艳，但已超过了保守党整体的品牌支持率。巴登诺奇女士在周三的主旨演讲中充满自信，阐述了她认为能够重返政权的道路。
For a party that keeps losing elections, the Conservatives have enjoyed a remarkably upbeat conference in Birmingham this week. A party with a strong regicidal impulse is united behind Kemi Badenoch. Opinion polls show the leader’s personal ratings, while not spectacular, outperforming the wider Tory brand. Mrs Badenoch exuded confidence in her keynote speech on Wednesday, setting out what she believes is a path back to power.
战略重点聚焦于经济。保守党领导人预计，随着财政大臣在本月晚些时候公布一份令人痛苦的预算案，安迪·伯纳姆的“蜜月期”也将结束。随后即将进行的支出审查将进一步加剧这种困境，迫使这位以回避艰难抉择而闻名的首相做出残酷的权衡。
The strategic focus is the economy. The Conservative leader expects Andy Burnham’s honeymoon to come to an end when his chancellor delivers a painful budget later this month. A spending review will then compound the pain, forcing grim trade-offs on a prime minister who has a reputation for deferring hard choices.
巴登诺奇女士则试图塑造自己更为坚韧的形象。她的意思是，她愿意直言：一个过度膨胀的政府为太多人做了太多事情。保守党领导人自认为的财政勇气，实际上不过是迎合其党内舒适区的意识形态上的自满。保守党大会提出了多项减税承诺，主要惠及中上和高收入家庭，同时承诺增加国防和监狱名额的投入，并减少国家债务。巴登诺奇女士称，这一切都是可行的，因为保守党声称在削减公务员、监管机构以及劳动年龄人口福利方面找到了700亿英镑的“节省空间”。
Mrs Badenoch presents herself as made of sterner stuff. By that she means she is prepared to say that an overgrown state does too much for too many people. What the Tory leader imagines to be fiscal courage is really ideological complacency pitched at her party’s comfort zone. The Conservative conference generated multiple commitments to cut taxes, mostly for upper-middle- and high-income families, alongside pledges to boost spending on defence and prison places, while also reducing the national debt. This is affordable, according to Mrs Badenoch, thanks to £70bn of “savings” the Conservatives claim to have identified in cuts to the civil service, regulators and working-age benefits.
然而，这种计算是虚假的，它没有考虑到紧缩政策的社会后果显现后政府成本将随之上升。不过，将资源从那些被神话化的“不配领取福利的懒汉”手中重新分配给那些努力拼搏却税负过重的中产阶级家庭，这确实是一个屡试不爽的竞选策略。
It is a phoney equation that doesn’t account for the increase in costs to government once the social consequences of austerity become apparent. But the proposed reallocation of resources from mythical undeserving benefit-claiming idlers to enterprising but overtaxed middle-class families is a trusted campaign device.
巴德诺奇夫人将这份议程描述为“适合每个人的方案”。但实际上，她试图吸引两个特定的群体。保守党需要吸引其昔日“蓝色壁垒”核心选区的选民——这些地区如今已被自由民主党掌控——以及2019年支持鲍里斯·约翰逊、后来转而支持奈杰尔·法拉奇的“改革英国党”的支持者。这两个群体的态度截然不同，粗略地说，他们在脱欧问题上形成了对立的政治身份：一方民族主义色彩浓厚，另一方则更为自由。
Mrs Badenoch presents this agenda as “something for everyone”. In reality, she is trying to reach two particular audiences. The Tories need to attract voters in their former “blue wall” heartlands, now held by Liberal Democrats, and people who backed Boris Johnson in 2019 and then switched to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. These groups have very different attitudes, crudely represented by the polarised political identities that coalesced into leave and remain blocs – one nationalistic, the other more liberal – on the question of Brexit.
巴德诺奇夫人曾花两年时间，通过采取强硬的移民立场和反对净零排放的气候政策来拉拢前者。但她迟至最近才注意到，有些人对法拉奇先生的议程感到震惊。周三的演讲中，她有一段重要内容批评了“改革英国党”那些以狭隘的种族定义来界定“英格兰人”身份的政客。
Mrs Badenoch spent two years courting the former camp with hardline positions on immigration and hostility to net zero climate policy. She has belatedly noticed the existence of people who are appalled by Mr Farage’s agenda. A significant passage in her speech on Wednesday rebuked Reform UK politicians who use a narrow ethnic definition of Englishness.
不过，这位保守党领袖主要谈论的是减税，因为她认为减税政策能吸引各个阶层的选民。这通常是一个可靠的假设，尽管同样的方案在2024年并未帮助保守党。选举前毫无节制的福利承诺，最终只是让基尔·斯塔默的财政状况变得更加糟糕。
But mostly the Conservative leader talked about tax cuts, because she believes they appeal across the spectrum. That is often a reliable assumption, although the same plan didn’t help the Tories in 2024. Reckless pre-election giveaways succeeded only in poisoning the fiscal well for Keir Starmer.
当时保守党面临的问题是，民众并不信任他们能够负责任且有能力地执政。这一点并未改变。巴德诺奇夫人认为，只要将自己的个人品牌与一个几十年未变的经典保守党方案相结合，就能赢得胜利。从伯明翰的舆论来看，她的议员和党内成员也持相同看法。这就是一个政党只对自己说话时会出现的结果。而当他们必须面对一个对保守党政府记忆犹新、因而不愿再听其言论的国家时，一场更为严峻的考验正等待着他们。
The problem for the Conservatives then was that people didn’t trust them to govern responsibly or competently. This hasn’t changed. Mrs Badenoch thinks victory is available by attaching her personal brand to a classic Tory formula, unrevised for decades. Judging by the mood in Birmingham, her MPs and members agree. This is what happens when a party speaks to itself. A much harder test awaits when they have to speak to a country that remembers Conservative government well enough to be disinclined to listen.