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.
英国保守党去年在大选中遭遇史上最惨重的失败，而后情势更趋恶化。尽管更换了被称为“原创型思考者”的年轻党魁凯米•巴德诺赫(Kemi Badenoch)，加之工党政府上任第一年的表现频频失手，保守党在民调中仍远远落至第三。奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)领导的民族主义政党英国改革党(Reform UK)已取代其作为右翼主要政党的地位。巴德诺赫在她首次党代会演讲中确实作出一项颇有价值的承诺：取消对首套自住房的印花税。但她的政党距离成为英国迫切需要的理性、可信的反对派还有很长的路要走。她正在成形的政纲在很大程度上走错了方向。