That bit in The Life of Brian, where the People’s Front of Judea resent being mistaken for the Judaean People’s Front: do young viewers get the joke? It was meant as a satire of the left. Socialists in the 1970s were forever splintering into obscure factions or “tendencies”. Watched again now, the scene remains clever. It does not remain entirely relevant.
1979年出品的英国喜剧电影《万世魔星》(The Life of Brian)有这样一个细节：“人民的犹地亚阵线”(People’s Front of Judea)的人，因为被误认为是“犹地亚人民的阵线”(Judaean People’s Front)而愤愤不平。如今的年轻观众还能看懂这个笑点吗？编剧意在讽刺左翼。上世纪70年代的社会主义者不断分裂为各种鲜为人知的派系或“倾向”。如今重看，依然觉得这场戏构思巧妙，但它已不再切合当今的现实。
For fragmentation in 2026, look right. In Poland, the ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) cannot agree whether to become still more hardline or to woo a different sort of voter. The result is an increasingly formal split. Mateusz Morawiecki — the relative moderate in this saga, as much as that spooks western European liberals who remember him as prime minister — leads a grouping within PiS with the reassuringly bland name of Development Plus.
2026年的政治碎片化发生在右翼阵营。在波兰，极度保守的法律与公正党(PiS)内部无法就未来路线达成一致：究竟是采取更强硬的立场，还是争取另一类选民？结果是日益正式的党内分裂。马特乌什•莫拉维茨基(Mateusz Morawiecki)在这场纷争中算是相对温和的一派，尽管这会让仍记得他担任总理时期事情的西欧自由派人士感到震惊。他领导着党内一个名为“发展+”(Development Plus)的派系，这个平淡无奇的名称听上去让人安心。
Where Poland goes, Britain has already gone. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is losing voters to the same-sounding but more extreme Restore Britain. The leader of the first is a “coward and a viper”, says the leader of the second, a former colleague.
波兰正在经历的，英国已经经历过了。奈杰尔•法拉奇(Nigel Farage)领导的英国改革党(Reform UK)正被名称相近、但立场更为极端的复兴英国党(Restore Britain)抢走选票。曾为法拉奇同僚的复兴英国党领导人鲁珀特•洛(Rupert Lowe)说法拉奇是“懦夫和毒蛇”。