The Budget that Alistair Darling presents on Wednesday will reveal the UK for what it is – a contender, once again, for the sick man of Europe tag it managed to shed 30 years ago. Some eurozone economies are, admittedly, hardly in better shape. The UK chancellor would not want to swap places with his counterparts in Ireland, Greece and Spain, for example. And outside the eurozone, in central and eastern Europe, some economies are in genuine crisis. But the respect, verging on awe, that the UK's post-1979 economic revival once elicited in continental Europe has now reverted to something nearer pity.
阿里斯代爾•達林(Alistair Darling)將於本週三呈交的預算案將揭示英國的真實狀態——在成功摘掉「歐洲病夫」這頂帽子30年之後，英國再次成爲這一頭銜的有力爭奪者之一。誠然，歐元區有些經濟體也好不到哪兒去。例如，英國財政大臣大概不會願意與愛爾蘭、希臘和西班牙的同行交換位置。而歐元區之外，中東歐的一些經濟體已陷入真正的危機。不過，1979年之後英國經濟復興在歐洲大陸激起的近乎敬畏的尊重，如今又變回到某種類似於憐憫的心態。