Can't find your Web ID?
from just ?1 a week
Can't find your Web ID?
The Rome Opera House sacked its entire orchestra and chorus the other day. Financed and managed by the state, and therefore crippled by debt, the opera house — like so much else in Italy — had been a jobs-for-life trade union fiefdom. Its honorary director, Riccardo Muti, became so fed up after dealing with six years of work-to-rule surrealism that he resigned. It’s hard to blame him. The musicians at the opera house — the ‘professori’ — work a 28-hour week (nearly half taken up with ‘study’) and get paid 16 months’ salary a year, plus absurd perks such as double pay for performing in the open air because it is humid and therefore a health risk. Even so, in the summer, Muti was compelled to conduct a performance of La Bohème with only a pianist because the rest of the orchestra had gone on strike.
After Muti’s resignation, the opera house board did something unprece-dented: they sacked about 200 members of the orchestra and chorus, in a country where no one with a long-term contract can be fired. It was a revolutionary — dare one say Thatcherite? — act. If only somebody would have the guts to do something similar across the whole of the Italian state sector. But nobody will. Italy seems doomed.
The latest panic on global stock markets has reminded the world of the vulnerability of the euro, and this week pundits in the British press have been busy speculating about France’s possible collapse. Hardly anyone bothers to fret about Italy any more, even though last week its exchanges took the second biggest hit after Greece. Italy’s irreversible demise is a foregone conclusion. The country is just too much of a basket case even to think about.
Italy’s experience of the European monetary union has been particularly painful. The Italians sleepwalked into joining the euro with scarcely any serious debate, and were so keen to sign up that they accepted a throttlingly high exchange rate with the lira. The price of life’s essentials, such as cigarettes, coffee and wine, doubled overnight while wages remained static — though back then jobs were still easy to find and money easy to borrow. But when the great crash happened, Italy, as a prisoner of a monetary union without a political union, was unable to do anything much about it, and could not even resort to the traditional medicine of currency devaluation.
The only path to recovery permitted by Brussels and Berlin — that of austerity — has been counterproductive because it has only been skin-deep. If austerity is to stimulate growth, it must be done to the hilt, which inevitably involves terrible suffering and the risk of mass agitation. No Italian politician can stomach that.
Italy can’t blame all its problems on monetary union, however. The euro did not cause the catastrophe, but it deprived Italy of a means to combat it and exposed its fatal structural weaknesses.
The youth unemployment rate here is 43 per cent — the highest on record. That figure doesn’t factor in the black market, which is so big that the Italian government now wants to include certain parts of it — prostitution, drug dealing and assorted smuggling — into its official GDP figures. The contribution is thought to be sizeable enough to take the country out of its third recession in six years.
We should remember that Italian companies get state money to pay workers to do nothing and not sack them — currently about half a million workers are in what is known as ‘cassa integrazione’. So the real unemployment rate in Italy must be at least 15 per cent, and that does not include all those who have given up trying to find work. Just 58 per cent of working-age Italians are employed, compared with an average 65 per cent in the developed world.
Even including all the cocaine and bunga-bunga does not alter the extra-ordinary fact that Italy’s economy has been stagnant since 2000. Indeed, over the past five years it has shrunk by 9.1 per cent. Worse still, it went into deflation last month, the thing that everyone most fears — even more than hyperinflation — and which caused the Japanese economy to stagnate for 20 years.
Since the defenestration of Silvio Berlusconi in November 2011 as a result of the bunga-bunga scandal, and the horrific gap that opened up in the value of Italian and German bonds, Italy has had three unelected prime ministers.
The left-wing Matteo Renzi, the latest of these, is billed as Italy’s Tony Blair because he has managed to force his party, the post-communist Partito Democratico, to forget the past and face the future. Initially, he promised that he would bring in all the necessary structural reforms within 100 but of course he did not, and now he says that he needs 1,000 days.
Il rottamatore (the ‘demolition man’), as Renzi is known, has just forced through a reform bill amid much fanfare and even physical fighting in the Senate. Renzi’s bill is supposed to abolish the mythical Articolo 18, which makes it virtually impossible to sack anyone in companies that employ more than 15 people. Yet if the bill ever becomes law, this being Italy, it will no doubt be so watered down by the time it reaches the statute books as to be meaningless. The unions have promised ‘un autunno caldo’ (a hot autumn) to protect their most prized sacred cow.
Same old story. Regardless of who is in charge in Italy, it is nearly always all mouth and no trousers, which to be fair is partly because the electoral system makes it impossible to avoid coalition governments and partly because the constitution, for fear of dictatorship, gives the prime minister little executive power.
Italian TV broadcasts wall-to-wall political talkshows (most of them left-wing even on Berlusconi’s channels) but they too are in crisis: the Italians, fatally disillusioned, are not bothering to watch television any more.
Italy’s sovereign debt, meanwhile, continues to grow exponentially. It is now EUR2.2 trillion, which is the equivalent of 135 per cent of GDP — the third highest in the world after Japan and Greece. And the more deflation Italy has, the bigger the debt and its cost in real terms.
In Italy, as in France, a dirigiste philosophy has predominated since the second world war. The government is run like money finds its way into every nook and cranny of the economy. Even newspapers are publicly subsidised, which is why there are so many of them.
Anyone who works in the real private sector — the family businesses that have made Italy’s name around the world — is in a bad place. Italy has the heaviest ‘total tax’ burden on businesses in the world at 68 per cent, according to the Sole 24 Ore newspaper, followed by France on 66 per cent, compared with just 36 per cent in Britain. To start a business in Italy is to enter a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare, and to keep it going is even worse. It also means handing the state at least 50 cents for every euro paid to staff. Add to this a judicial system that is byzantine, politicised and in possession of terrifying powers, and you begin to understand why no sane foreign company sets up headquarters in Italy.
I worked for a regional newspaper, La Voce di Romagna,as a columnist for a decade until a year ago, but gave up after my employer — even though in receipt of hefty public money — failed to pay me for three months. I was not entitled to dole money, because I was self-employed. Employees with proper contracts are entitled to the dole, but only for a year or so. Many of my colleagues have not been paid for up to a year. Now, though, La Voce is about to go into bankruptcy and close. I would not bet a single euro on those former colleagues getting any of the money owed to them.
Yet there is another Italy — the state-financed one — where life is, if not a bed of roses, still fine, all things considered — even though those Rome Opera House sackings have caused a little ripple of anxiety. Italian MPs are the highest paid in the civilised world, earning almost twice the salary of a British MP. Barbers in the Italian Parliament get up to EUR136,120 a year gross. All state employees get a fabulous near-final–salary pension. It is not difficult to appreciate the fury of the average Italian private sector worker, whose gross annual pay is EUR18,000.
The phrase ‘you could not make it up’ fits the gold-plated world of the Italian state employee to a tee — especially in the Mezzo-giorno, Italy’s hopeless south. Sicily, for instance, employs 28,000 forestry police — more than Canada — and has 950 ambulance drivers who have no ambulances to drive.
An Italian government that really meant business would make urgent and drastic cuts not just to the bloated, parasitical and corrupt state sector, but also to taxes, labour costs and red tape. Yet even now only Beppe Grillo, a modern comic version of Benito Mussolini, and the separatist Northern League advocate Italian withdrawal from the euro. Most Italians still don’t get it: the euro is the problem, not the solution — unless, that is, they go for real austerity in a major way, which they will not do unless forced to at gunpoint.
Italy, more even than France, is the sick man of Europe — and it is also the dying man of Europe. Italian women used to have more children than anyone else in Europe. It is common to meet old men called Decimo (‘Tenth’). Yet for decades the birth rate in Italy has been among the lowest in the world, and if it were not for immigration the population would be in decline. When Italian women refuse to make babies, it is a clear sign of a terminally sick society.
, , , , , , , , , ,
More Spectator for less. Subscribe and receive 12 issues delivered for just ?12, with full web and app access. .
Read12345678910
Latest podcast
Editor's Choice
‘Groping or non-groping?’
‘It’s OK, he’s pissed within
government guidelines.’
‘Thanks for the lesson, Mum, but here’s one
I ordered online earlier.’
The Spectator
Supplements
Other sites
Powered by
Switch to :
Subscribe now to read on
Already a subscriber? Login with your Web ID
Now read on
Already a subscriber with a Web ID? .答案：1B2C3C4D提示：1 本文介绍了为什么人们乘坐火车时要看报，故本题选B
2 文中曾说到读报纸是大多数英国人的日常活动。本题选C
3 文中并未涉及C项，故本题选C
most men would notice a woman struggling with a heavy case and jump up to help
her可知本题选D
请选择年级高一高二高三请输入相应的习题集名称(选填)：
科目：高中英语
来源：2011年陕西省高二下学期期末考试英语题
题型：完型填空
Britain
and Ireland
　　The British Isles is made up of two large islands: One is called
Ireland and the other __16& . Britain, or Great Britain, is the
larger of these two islands, and it is17 &into three parts:
Scotland, Wales and England.
　　The United Kingdom is that 18& &of the British
Isles ruled over by the Queen. It is made up of Scotland, Wales and England,
that is, the& 19& &of Britain, and also about one sixth
of Ireland, the Northern part. The& 20 &of Ireland is
self-governing. The& 21 &name of the United Kingdom is&
22& &“The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland”.
　23& is larger and richer than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland,
and has the largest &24 &&of the United Kingdom, so
people often use the 25& “England”
and “English”
when they& 26& &“Britain” and “British”.
This sometimes makes the Scots and the Welsh a little 27& . The
Scots in particular are very& 28& of their separate
nationality. The Welsh too do not regard &&29 &as
English, and have a culture and even a &&30 of their own.
　　Ireland became part of the United Kingdom in 1801, but for forty
years the “Irish &31& &” was the greatest headache of the United Kingdom.&
32& , Ireland is divided into two: Northern Ireland still &33 to
the United Kingdom, and in 1922 the rest of Ireland &&34& &to
found an Irish Free State, later called Eire and now the Republic of Ireland.
　　The Republic of Ireland does not regard itself as part of Britain,
and is not now even a supporter of the Commonwealth of Nations (英联邦). Unlike the major Commonwealth countries it did not lift a finger
to&& 35 British in the Second World War and now wants the
whole of Ireland to be a republic.
1.A.
Wales&&&&&& B.
Britain&&&&&&&& C.
England&&&&&&& D. Scotland
2.A.
divided&&&&& B.
cut&&&&&&&&&&& C.
broken&&&&&&&&& D. separated
3.A.
piece&&&&&&& B.
island&&&&&&&&& C.
country&&&&&&&& D. part
4.A.
south&&&&&&& B.
north&&&&&&&&& C.
part&&&&&&&&&&& D. whole
5.A.
smaller&&&&& B.
larger&&&&&&&&& C.
rest&&&&&&&&&&&& D.
island
6.A.
correct&&&&& B.
true&&&&&&&&&&& C.
full&&&&&&&&&&&& D.
complete
7.A.
also&&&&&&&& B.
therefore&&&&& &C.
likely&&&&&&&&&& D. perhaps
8.A. The
UK&&&&& B. The British isles& C. Great
Britain&&& D. England
9.A.
colleges&&&&& B.
officials&&&&&&&& C.
cities&&&&&&&&&& D.
population
10.A.
words&&&&&& B.
names&&&&&&&&&& C.
spellings&&&&&&& D. pronunciations
11.A.
call&&&&&&&& B.
forget&&&&&&&&&& C.
speak&&&&&&&&&& D. write
12.A.
angry&&&&&& B.
difficult&&&&&&&&& C.
tired&&&&&&&&&& D. lonely
13.A.
proud&&&&&& B.
fond&&&&&&&&&&& C.
full&&&&&&&&&&&& D.
kind
14. A.
it&&&&&&&&&& B.
Wales&&&&&&&&&& C. them&&&&&&&&&&&
D. themselves
15.A.
capital&&&&& B.
language&&&&&&&& C.
history&&&&&&&&& D. programs
16.A.
Country&&&& B.
Question&&&&&&& &C.
Disease&&&&&&&&& D. Republic
17.A. At
last&&&&& B.
So&&&&&&&&&&&&&
C. Meanwhile&&&&&& D. Also
18.A. returns &&&&&B.
belongs&&&&&&&&& C.
gets&&&&&&&&&&&& D.
speaks
19.A.
hoped&&&&&& B.
refused&&&&&&&& &C. broke
away&&&&&& D. used
20.A.
feel&&&&&&&& B.
touch&&&&&&&&&& &C.
fight&&&&&&&&&&&&
D. help
科目：高中英语
来源：学年湖北省、黄石二中高三上学期联考考试英语卷
题型：阅读理解
Jeffery Deaver looks more like a brainy
villain （反派人物） in a
James Bond movie than a &00& agent in Her Majesty's secret service．Best known for his thrillers
starring criminalist （刑事专家） Lincoln Rhyme, Jeffery Deaver has a new mission: Bring Bond into
the 21st century in a new 007 novel．
The yet-to-be-named book is cryptically （隐秘地） referred to as
&Project X& by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd．, which owns the rights to
Fleming's work．Most
of the details surrounding Project X, to be published in May, are being kept
under wraps, but under gentle coaxing （用好话劝诱） Deaver begins to spill his guts．&The novel,& he says, &is set in
the present day, in 2011．Bond is a young agent for the British secret service．He's 29 or 30 years old, and
he's an Afghan war vet．& That in itself is big news．After all, if Bond were aging in real time — he
first appeared on the screen in 1953 — the now doddering （老态龙钟的） 007 would be nearly 90．
But first up: a new stand-alone Deaver
novel, Edge （Simon
& Schuster, $26．99）, to
be published Tuesday．It's about a federal agent who risks his life to protect a
Washington police detective from a man hired to extract information from him
using any means at his disposal （任由个人支配的）．
Sipping coffee while seated on a leather
chair in a sitting room decorated with portraits of his dogs and show ribbons,
the mild-mannered author who writes about murderers and serial killers talks
about his career and the solid fan base that has allowed him to pursue writing
full time since 1990．&I may not sell as many books as John Grisham（although he has sold a cool 20
million）, but I have
a very loyal fan base,& says Deaver, 60, who wrote some of his novels
while working as a Wall Street lawyer．Deaver's initiation into the Bond family — more than 100 million 007
novels have sold worldwide — could significantly raise his profile （知名度）．
Other novelists have written Bond novels
since Ian Fleming's death in 1964 — including Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and,
most recently, Sebastian Faulks — but they all took place in the original era．Deaver is taking a new approach．&There's no more Cold War
to fight,& says Deaver, so his new Bond, of the Fleming estate, will fight
&post-9/11 evil．& &I want to stay true to the original James Bond, who
many people don't know much about,& he says, referring to the secret agent
Fleming portrayed in 14 novels, and not the movie Bond．&People know Daniel Craig,
they know Pierce Brosnan, they know Roger Moore and Sean Connery, all of whom
brought a great deal to the stories of 007．But the original Bond was a very dark, edgy （另类的） character．&
1.Which of the following is NOT true about
Jeffery Deaver?
A．Jeffery Deaver is a &00& agent in Her Majesty's secret
service in a James Bond movie．
B．Jeffery Deaver was working as a lawyer while he wrote some novels
about murderers and serial killers．
C．It is the loyal fan base that has allowed Jeffery Deaver to keep
on writing since 1990．
D．Jeffery Deaver is best known for his thrillers rather than for 007
2.Which statement best explains the meaning
of “spill his guts” in Paragraph 2?
A．Tell others what he knows about the yet-to-be-named 007 novel．
B．Tell others everything he knows about Ian Fleming Publications Ltd．．
C．Have the courage to talk about the 007 agent James Bond．
D．Have the determination to talk about &Project X&．
3.Who was the author of 007 novels?
A．Jeffery Deaver
B．Ian Fleming
C．John Grisham
D．Kingsley Amis
4.What do you know about the new 007 novel
from the passage?
A．The book to be published in May is named &Project X& by
Ian Fleming Publications Ltd．．
B．The book is about a federal agent risking his life to protect a
Washington police detective．
C．The book features a young James Bond, an Afghan war vet working
for the British secret service．
D．The book features a young James Bond who fights Cold War．
科目：高中英语
来源：学年湖北天门市高考模拟英语试题（三）
题型：阅读理解
The wedding between Prince Wiliam
and Kate Middleton on April 29 has focused the world’s camera lenses (镜头) on the UK.
In Britain, there is
a constant debate about the relevance (相关性) of the royal family to modern British
society. However, Windsor (the fam&ily name of the British Royal Family) and
Middleton have been seen to represent a more modern, forward-looking nation.
Nigel Baker, the
British ambassador to Bolivia, believes that the royal wedding is “about modern
Britain”. “The estimated 2 billion spectators across the world will see that Britain is one of the most culturally and ethnically diverse nations in the world, home to
270 nationalities speaking 300 different languages, founded on tolerance and
respect for difference,” wrote Baker on his blog.
According to Baker,
the wedding could help viewers to see “why Britain is one of the most dynamic
and creative countries in the world”: The television on which most people watched
the event was invented by John Logie Baird, a Briton, and the World Wide Web
that broadcast the event to millions more was invented by another Briton, Tim
Berners-Lee.
&The guests who
attended the wedding ceremony gave more than a few clues as to the nature of
modern Britain. David and Victoria Beckham represent Britain’s obsession (着迷)with football and
celebrity.
Leaders from
different religious backgrounds supported Baker’s com&ments on the
multicultural nature of modern British society.
Before the wedding,
David Elliott, arts director of the British Council China, agreed that the wedding
would be a showcase for modern Britain: “I think, and hope, that it (modern
British influence) would be values like openness, multiculturalism, creativity,
sense of humor and the traditional British sense of fair play,” he said.
Furthermore, events
such as the Olympics in London in 2012 may also increase people’s sense of
Britishness.
According to a poll
published in Daily Telegraph, more than a third of people in the UK admitted they felt “very British” when watching the Olympics.
1.. &What is
the point of the article?
A. To introduce
Prince William’s wedding arrangements in detail.
B. To comment on the
significance of the royal wedding.
C. To question the
relevance of the royal family in modern British society.
D. To explain why the
royal wedding is linked with the 2012 Olympics.
2.. &What can
be concluded from the article?
A. Some say that the
royal wedding is a reflection on modern Britain.
B Some think the
royal wedding shows Britain’s multiculturalism and sense of fair play.
C.About 2 billion
people across the world will see the wedding ceremony online.
D. Britons are
obsessed with football due to the influence of David Beckham.
3.. &Why is
the inventor of the World Wide Web mentioned?
A. To inform readers
about some well-known British inventors.
B. To point to the
importance of the World Wide Web for the wedding.
C. In support of the
idea that Britain is a nation of creative and original people.
D. To encourage people to watch the
wedding on the Internet.
4.. &According
to the article, both the 2012 Olympics and the royal wedding &&&&&&&&.
A. have increased the
British sense of national identity
B. have promoted
traditional British values
C. represent a more
modern Britain
D. have encouraged
the interest of Britons in Football
科目：高中英语
来源：学年天津市高三毕业班联考英语试题（二）
题型：阅读理解
Over the last 25 years, British society has
changed a great deal. In some ways, however, very little has changed. Ideas
about social class whether a person is “working-class” or “middle-class” are
one area in which changes have been extremely slow.
In the past, the working-class tended to be
paid less than middle-class people, such as teachers and doctors. As a result
of this and also of the fact that workers’ jobs were generally much less
secure, distinct differences in life-styles and attitudes came into existence.
The typical working man would collect his wages on Friday evening and then give
them to his wife, leaving a little for drinking or betting.
The type of what a middle-class man did
with his money was perhaps nearer the truth. He was and still is likely to take
a longer-term view. Not only did he regard buying a house to provide him and
his family with security. Only in very few cases did workers have the
opportunity (or the education and training) to make such long-term plans.
Nowadays, much has changed. In a large
number of cases factory workers earn as much. Social security and laws have
made it less necessary than before to worry about “tomorrow”. Working-class
people seem slowly to be losing the feeling of inferiority(自卑感)they had in the past. In
fact there has been a growing tendency in the past few years for the
middle-classes to feel slightly ashamed of their position.
The changes in both life-styles and
attitudes are probably most easily seen among younger people. They generally
tend to share very similar tastes in music and clothes. They spend their money
enjoying themselves, and save for holidays or longer-term plans when necessary.
There seems to be much less difference than in precious generations.
Nevertheless, we still have a wide gap between the well-paid and the low-paid.
As long as this gap exists, there will always be a possibility that new
problems will appear between different groups.
1.Which of the following is seen as the
main cause of class differences in the past?
A．Life style and occupation.
B．Attitude and income.
C．Income and job security.
D．Job security and hobbies.
2. The writer seems to suggest that
_______.
A．the description of middle-class ways of spending money is quite
B．working-class ways of spending the weekend remain the same
C．working-class drinking habits differ from the past
D．middle-class attitudes towards their positions have changed
3. According to the passage, what was the
typical feature of the middle–class in the past?
A．They had to save money for security.
B．They couldn’t make long-term plans.
C．They could make as much money as they do now.
D．They didn’t have the sense of inferiority.
4. Working-class people's sense of security
has increased as a result of all the following factors EXCEPT that _______.
A．they are provided with social security
B．they can get much income
C．better jobs are available for all of them
D．the government offers legal protection
5.Which of the following statements is
incorrect?
A．Changes are slowly taking place in all aspects of the British
B．The difference between working-class and middle-class young people
is narrowing.
C．The gap in income between the two classes will still remain.
D．Middle-class people may sometimes feel a little inferior.
科目：高中英语
来源：2010年黑龙江省高二下学期期末考试英语卷
题型：阅读理解
It seems that the Englishman just cannot
live without sports of some kind. A famous French humourist once said that this
is because the English insist on behaving like children all their lives.
Wherever you go in this country you will see both children and grown-ups
knocking a ball about with a stick or something, as if in Britain men shall
always remain boys and women girls! Still, it can never be bad to get exercise,
can it?
Taking all amateur（业余）and professional sports in
Britain into consideration, there can be no doubt that football is at the top
of the list. It is called soccer in the United States. The game originated in
Britain and was played in the Middle Ages or even earlier, though as an
organized game, or “association football”, it dates only from the beginning of
the 19th century.
The next is rugby, which is called
“football” in the United States. It is a kind of football played by two teams
of fifteen players rather than eleven. The rugby, in which an oval-shaped ball
is used can be handled as well as kicked. It is a pretty rough game.
In summer, cricket is the most popular
sport. In fact, it has sometimes been called the English national game. Most
foreigners find the game rather slow or even boring, but it enjoys great
popularity among the British.
Tennis rates high on the list, too. It was
introduced into England from France in the 15th century, but it was from
England that it spread to practically every country in the world.
Table-tennis or “ping-pong” surely is not
played on a great scale as it is in China or in Japan. Basketball and
volleyball were introduced into Britain during the late 19th century from America
and are gaining popularity. Horse-back riding, swimming, rowing and golf all
attract a lot of people.
1.The main purpose of paragraph one is to
tell us that the English_______.
A．are all sports lovers
B．behave like children
C．like to kick a ball around
D．can remain young all their lives
2.According to the passage, which of the
following is NOT true about football and rugby?
A．They differ in the shape of the ball
B．They are played by different numbers of players
C．They both can be handled
D．They both can be kicked
3.From the second and the third paragraph,
we know that_____.
A．Americans love football most of all
B．British people love rugby most of all
C．Americans and British people may call the same thing differently
D．football originated in Britain in the 18th century