Britain’s Conservatives crashed last year to their worst-ever general election defeat. Then things got worse. Despite installing a young leader, Kemi Badenoch, touted as an original thinker, and the Labour government’s fumbled first year in office, the Tories are a distant third in the polls. Nigel Farage’s nationalist Reform UK has usurped their role as the main party of the right. Badenoch’s first party conference speech did conclude with a worthwhile pledge: to scrap stamp duty on primary residences. But her party has a long way to go to become the reasonable, credible opposition that Britain sorely needs. Much of her emerging platform runs in the wrong direction.
英國保守黨去年在大選中遭遇史上最慘重的失敗，而后情勢更趨惡化。盡管更換了被稱為“原創型思考者”的年輕黨魁凱米?巴德諾赫(Kemi Badenoch)，加之工黨政府上任第一年的表現頻頻失手，保守黨在民調中仍遠遠落至第三。奈杰爾?法拉奇(Nigel Farage)領導的民族主義政黨英國改革黨(Reform UK)已取代其作為右翼主要政黨的地位。巴德諾赫在她首次黨代會演講中確實作出一項頗有價值的承諾：取消對首套自住房的印花稅。但她的政黨距離成為英國迫切需要的理性、可信的反對派還有很長的路要走。她正在成形的政綱在很大程度上走錯了方向。