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Politics

论鲍里斯·约翰逊和我们的倒掉

Jul 19, 2022 Robert Skidelsky

伦敦—几乎所有的政治生涯都以失败告终，但鲍里斯·约翰逊是第一位因丑闻而被推翻的英国首相。这应该让我们担心。

20 世纪英国领导人的三次最引人注目的垮台由政治因素造成。张伯伦倒台是因为绥靖政策的失败。苏伊士的惨败迫使伊登在 1957 年辞职。撒切尔夫人1990 年倒台使因为民众对人头税的抵制使保守党议员相信，在她担任领导人的情况下保守但无法再次获胜。

诚然，麦克米兰在 1963 年因 Profumo 性丑闻而下台，但这涉及支持战争的国务卿和可能危及到国家安全的情况。经济失败后的选举失利导致了 1970 年代希思和卡拉汉的倒台。布莱尔因伊拉克危机以及布朗急于接替他而被迫辞职。卡梅伦被英国脱欧拖下了水，而梅的失败则是因为她未能实现脱欧所困扰。

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Robert Skidelsky

Writing for PS since 2003
201 Commentaries

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, was a non-executive director of the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft from 2016 to 2021. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

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joel bernard Jul 24, 2022

Regrettably, I think the United States lags way behind Great Britain in making a politician's personal dishonesty a political liability. T.R.U.M.P. The old American political saw still holds: "The only disqualification for political advancement is being discovered in bed next to a dead woman or a live boy." Adultery, lying, fraud, abuse of power, family enrichment, inciting insurrection...not so much. Most appalling is the religious rationale: "God makes use of strange instruments to achieve His ends."
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Jan-Pieter Van Niekerk Jul 20, 2022

Apate has many children, especially in politics. This has been so ever since Pandora opened her box and will never go away. No one can close Pandora's box. Deceit is part of human nature, whether you like it or not. Conceded, deceit seems more prominent nowadays. But read mythology again. The ancient Greeks did not expect their gods to behave any better than they did. Should we expect that from our politicians? It's only human. The trouble starts with ourselves: we massively believe the lies we're told and we want to believe, especially a comforting story! The world is too big a place and far too complex, to make sense of it all by ourselves.
But then again, with open eyes and a sense of wonder: ask yourself a question and then ask it to someone else, that's how resistance starts (as a recently deceased Dutch poet said).
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