英國新首相背後的權力推手
In his 1938 novel Brighton Rock, Graham Greene sought to address great questions of right and wrong against a backdrop of ruthless score-settling. The book is a favourite of Nick Timothy, who — as much as anyone — is now charged with moving British politics on from its own bout of bloodletting.
在1938年出版的小說《布萊頓硬糖》(Brighton Rock)中，格雷厄姆•格林(Graham Greene)試圖在無情的清算舊怨的背景下回答是與非的重大問題。該書是尼克•蒂莫西(Nick Timothy)的最愛，如今他肩負着翻開英國政治的新一頁、告別一波廝殺的重任。
As joint chief of staff to Theresa May, the lavishly bearded Mr Timothy, 36, has emerged as the power behind the throne, or at least one of the most influential voices in front of it. When the prime minister abruptly paused French-Chinese plans to build a nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, her thinking was traced back to a blog that he had written nine months earlier, warning of China’s security threat.
作爲英國首相特里薩•梅(Theresa May)的聯席幕僚長，36歲、滿臉絡腮鬍的蒂莫西已崛起爲權力背後的力量，或者至少是權力前面最有影響力的聲音之一。當梅突然宣佈暫停法中合建的欣克利角核電項目時，她的思路可以追溯至蒂莫西9個月前撰寫的一篇警告中國安全威脅的博文。
Similarly, Mrs May’s new enthusiasm for industrial strategy and scepticism of foreign takeovers align neatly with his long-held views. Her few wide-ranging speeches have been mostly written by him. “It’s difficult to know where the overlap starts and stops,” says one friend.
同樣，梅對產業戰略的新熱情以及對外資收購的懷疑態度，也與蒂莫西的長期觀點不謀而合。梅爲數不多的幾次長篇演說大都由蒂莫西起草。一位朋友表示：“很難知道他們的交集在什麼地方，或者有多大。”
Mr Timothy’s writings are being pored over for clues as to the prime minister’s agenda. He has been enthusiastic about faith schools, hostile to green taxes, and open to a deal with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. He has also proposed a “blue collar” Toryism that marks a clear break with the consensual conservatism of Mrs May’s predecessor David Cameron. “We need to keep asking ourselves what, in 2016, does the Conservative party offer a working-class kid from Brixton, Birmingham, Bolton or Bradford?” he wrote in March.
外界爲了找尋關於首相議程的線索，正在仔細研讀蒂莫西的文章。他對教會學校懷有熱情，他反對徵收環境稅，但對與敘利亞的巴沙爾•阿薩德(Bashar al-Assad)達成協議持開放態度。他還提出了“藍領階層”保守主義，這標誌着與前首相戴維•卡梅倫(David Cameron)的共識型保守主義分道揚鑣。他在3月寫道：“我們必須不斷捫心自問，2016年保守黨能爲來自布里克斯頓、伯明翰、博爾頓或是布拉德福德的工人階級子女提供什麼？”
That reflects how, unlike Ed Llewellyn, the preceding chief of staff, Mr Timothy was not the beneficiary of an elite education. Born in Birmingham, he attended a publicly funded grammar school, and so, by his early teens, had a reason to vote Conservative. “I knew that if Labour won the [1992] election they’d have closed the school I’d just had the chance to go to,” he recalled.
這反映出蒂莫西並非精英教育的受益者，這一點與卡梅倫的幕僚長黎偉略(Ed Llewellyn)不同。蒂莫西生於伯明翰，他接受的是公立文法學校的教育，因此在十幾歲的時候，他有理由支持保守黨。“我知道，如果工黨贏得（1992年）大選，他們會關閉我剛剛有機會進入的學校，”他回憶道。
His political hero is Joseph Chamberlain, a businessman, a can-do Liberal mayor of Birmingham in the 1870s and later a Conservative ally. Mr Timothy celebrates him for focusing the party on the working class. Others credit Benjamin Disraeli, the mercurial Tory prime minister whose obvious heir is Boris Johnson, not Mrs May.
他心目中的政治英雄是約瑟夫•張伯倫(Joseph Chamberlain)，後者是一名商人，也是1870年代伯明翰市敢作敢當的自由黨市長，後來成爲保守黨的盟友。蒂莫西稱讚他讓自由黨專注於工人階級。其他人透露，他還受到19世紀變幻莫測的保守黨首相本傑明•迪斯雷利(Benjamin Disraeli)的影響，後者顯而易見的繼承者是鮑里斯•約翰遜(Boris Johnson)，而不是梅。
Either way, Mr Timothy’s Birmingham background hints at an authenticity that Downing Street has sometimes lacked. He supports Aston Villa and Birmingham Bears, local football and cricket teams. Mr Cameron declared himself an Aston Villa supporter too, but once confused the club with West Ham, who play in the same colours.
不管怎樣，蒂莫西的伯明翰背景暗示了一種接地氣的真實感，而這個特點是唐寧街(Downing Street)有時缺乏的。他支持當地的足球隊阿斯頓維拉(Aston Villa)和板球隊伯明翰熊隊(Birmingham Bears)。卡梅倫也宣稱自己是阿斯頓維拉的擁躉，但他曾把該俱樂部與穿同樣顏色隊服的西漢姆聯隊(West Ham)弄混。
Nonetheless, Mr Timothy has spent his entire working life in Westminster’s orbit. After studying politics at Sheffield University, he worked as a researcher in Conservative central office and a staffer for Mrs May in opposition. His belief in industrial strategy is juxtaposed with his limited time in the private sector.
然而，蒂莫西的全部職業生涯都是在英國議會度過的。從謝菲爾德大學(Sheffield University)政治學專業畢業後，他成爲保守黨中央辦公室的一名研究人員，後來成爲處於反對黨地位的梅的一名幕僚。在私營部門有限的經歷與他對產業戰略的信念似乎相符。
Following the 2010 election, he became a special adviser to Mrs May, then home secretary. By tightly controlling policy, he helped to ensure that there were fewer messes at the Home Office than in previous years.
在2010年大選後，他成爲了時任內政大臣的梅的特別顧問。通過牢牢地控制政策，他幫助確保了內政部的混亂局面較往年有所減少。
Occasionally a certain brazenness — even vindictiveness — emanated from the top of the ministry occupied by Mrs May. For example, in 2011 Brodie Clark, then the head of the UK Border Agency, was accused of having relaxed checks at Heathrow without Mrs May’s permission. He found himself on the end of harsh briefings, apparently from the Home Office. He later claimed constructive dismissal, which ended in an expensive settlement. In another incident in 2014, Mr Timothy’s fellow adviser Fiona Hill resigned after confidential documents about alleged Islamic influence in Birmingham schools were leaked in order to embarrass Michael Gove, former education secretary.
由梅佔據的內政部高層偶爾會散發出某種悍然、甚至報復心理的風氣。例如，2011年，時任英國邊境管理局(UK Border Agency)負責人的布羅迪•克拉克(Brodie Clark)被指責在未經梅的允許下擅自放鬆希思羅機場(Heathrow)的安檢。他發現自己成了明顯來自內政部的嚴厲簡報的批評對象。之後他聲稱遭到推定解僱，最後以納稅人付出高昂代價的和解方式了結。在2014年的另一次事件中，爲了讓前教育大臣邁克爾•戈夫(Michael Gove)難堪，有人泄露了有關伊斯蘭教據稱影響伯明翰學校的機密文件，之後與蒂莫西同爲顧問的菲奧娜•希爾(Fiona Hill)辭職。
Eventually Mr Timothy’s luck ran out too. He had defended Mrs May’s turf against the incursions of Downing Street, occasionally engaging in furious email exchanges. Then he harangued the Cabinet Office for guidance on whether he, as a publicly funded adviser, could campaign for the Conservatives. The row ended with him being excluded from the party’s list of candidates in the 2015 general election, and ultimately leaving the government. His alienation from Mr Cameron’s clique was complete.
最終蒂莫西的運氣也耗盡了。他維護梅的地盤，抵禦唐寧街的入侵，偶爾投入滿腔憤怒的郵件交涉。之後，由於內閣辦公室(Cabinet Office)提問他作爲一名公共資金資助的顧問是否可以代表保守黨參加競選，他忍不住作出了長篇回擊。這場爭吵最終使他被排除在保守黨2015年大選候選人名單以外，他最終離開政府。從此他與卡梅倫的小圈子徹底分道揚鑣。
Mr Timothy, who is engaged to Nike Trost, an official at the Financial Conduct Authority, spent the next 12 months promoting state-funded independent free schools. During the EU referendum, he played his cards cleverly, backing Brexit while criticising the Leave campaign. When Mr Cameron resigned, he regrouped with Mrs May and Ms Hill.
在接下來的12個月裏，與英國金融市場行爲監管局(FCA)官員奈克•特羅斯特(Nike Trost)訂婚的蒂莫西致力於推動政府資助的自主學校。在退歐公投期間，他巧妙出牌：支持英國退歐，同時批評退歐陣營。卡梅倫辭職後，他與梅和希爾再度聯手。
The role of chief of staff was imported from the US by Tony Blair. It offers the hope of asserting the prime minister’s power over ministers and Whitehall. “It is not the job of the chief of staff to tell the prime minister why something can’t be done,” recalled Jonathan Powell, the first person to hold the position. “He has a whole civil service to do that.”
幕僚長這一職位是託尼•布萊爾(Tony Blair)從美國引入英國的。這一角色承載着維護首相對部長級官員和白廳(Whitehall)權威的希望。“向首相解釋某件事爲什麼做不到，這不是幕僚長的職責，”英國首位幕僚長喬納森•鮑威爾(Jonathan Powell)回憶道，“他有整個公務員團隊作那個解釋。”
Mrs May has sacked most of the heavyweight ministers who might defy her. Even so, people familiar with Mr Timothy wonder if he and Ms Hill, the joint chief of staff, will be able to have the tight grip on decisions that they enjoyed at the Home Office. He has the ideas, but Downing Street is a chaotic world. As Mr Powell wrote: “My rule of thumb was that six simultaneous crises were manageable but the seventh would usually prove too much.”
梅炒掉了絕大多數可能不聽話的重量級大臣。即便如此，熟悉蒂莫西的人不禁猜測，他和另一位聯席幕僚長希爾能否牢牢掌握他們曾在內政部享有的決策權。他有想法，但是唐寧街是一個混亂的地方。鮑威爾曾經寫道：“我的經驗法則是，6場同時發生的危機尚屬可控，但是第7場危機往往會讓人擋不住。”
