来源：《每日电讯报》
原文刊登日期：2022年6月4日
Travellers continue to express their dismay at the chaos engulfing the UK’s airports over the weekend. Even those lucky enough not to have their flights cancelled at short notice are experiencing massive delays or long queues for basic items like food and water in terminals. Nobody seems to be capable of getting a grip of this scandal, in which holidaymakers are being denied services that they have paid for in good faith. One of the causes is a shortage of staff, with companies struggling to return to full capacity after two years of lockdowns and varying levels of restrictions on international travel.
旅客们继续对上周末席卷英国机场的混乱表示失望。即使是那些幸运的没有被仓促取消航班的人，也正在经历大规模的延误，或者在航站楼排队购买食物和水等基本物品。似乎没有人能够控制这起丑闻，在这个丑闻中，度假者真心实意付费后，被拒绝服务。原因之一是员工短缺，在经历了两年的封锁和不同程度的国际旅行限制后，企业难以恢复满负荷运转。
But the problem of unfilled positions is not isolated to the travel sector. Britain is in the extraordinary situation of having more open vacancies than there are people who are officially unemployed. The tendency in the past few decades has been to attempt to remedy such shortages by importing workers from overseas. However, immigration is already running at very high levels, and one of the drivers of the vote for Brexit was a desire among the public to get a control on the numbers coming into the country.
但职位空缺的问题并不仅仅存在于旅游部门。英国正处于一种特殊的情况，空缺职位比官方公布的失业人数还多。过去几十年的趋势是试图通过从海外引进工人来弥补这种短缺。然而，移民数量已经非常高了，英国民众投票支持脱欧的原因之一是希望控制进入英国的移民数量。
In fact, there is a hidden crisis of mass joblessness among British people, with millions living on benefits not being captured by the unemployment figures because they are not looking for work. It is cruel to condemn people to a life of dependency on the state. It is also expensive. There is no justification for paying anyone who is fit for work to do nothing, especially if the country desperately needs more workers.
事实上，在英国人当中存在着一种隐性的大规模失业危机，数百万靠救济金生活的人没有被失业数据记录下来，因为他们没有找工作。迫使人民过依赖政府的生活是残忍的。它也很贵。没有理由付钱给适合工作的人让他们无所事事，尤其是在国家迫切需要更多工人的情况下。
This is one of many crises afflicting the country that the Government cannot put off solving any longer. Ministers sometimes point out that other nations are experiencing similar problems to the UK – whether that is high energy prices, a backlog in non-Covid treatments, or the broader cost-of-living squeeze. It is true that almost every country is having to contend with the damage wrought by the pandemic lockdowns. What they neglect to mention is that the situation is often worse in the UK than it is elsewhere, in some cases to a considerable degree.
这是困扰英国的众多危机之一，政府不能再推迟解决。部长们有时指出，其他国家正在经历与英国类似的问题——无论是高能源价格、非新冠肺炎治疗的积压，还是更广泛的生活成本上升造成的拮据。诚然，几乎每个国家都必须应对大流行封锁造成的破坏。但他们忽略了一点，那就是英国的情况往往比其他地方更糟，在某些情况下甚至达到了相当大的程度。
Ministers have a tendency to coast from crisis to crisis, reacting to events and then failing to confront the fundamental drivers of the nation’s problems. One of the consequences is that the public debate regularly descends into an unproductive blame game, with nobody taking responsibility as in the case of the travel chaos.
部长们倾向于对一个又一个危机敷衍了事，对事件做出反应，然后不去面对国家问题的根本原因。其后果之一是，公众辩论经常沦为徒劳无益的指责游戏，没有人为像旅行混乱这样的事儿承担责任。