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  3. Last year, when squatters broke into Ann Keen’s house on a quiet, suburban s

Last year, when squatters broke into Ann Keen’s house on a quiet, suburban s

游客2023-12-03  14
问题     Last year, when squatters broke into Ann Keen’s house on a quiet, suburban street in Brentford, west London, the neighbours’ reaction was surprising: they made soup for the interlopers. But then, Mrs. Keen is the Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth, and one of the politicians most vilified over the parliamentary-expenses scandal. Although Brentford is just eight miles from Westminster, Mrs. Keen and her husband, Alan, who is MP for neighbouring Feltham and Heston, claimed for the cost of maintaining a second home close to Parliament. This was not against the rules of the day but it riled many locals, who dubbed the couple "Mr. and Mrs. Expenses". In the end the Keens had to pay back ￡1,500 that they had claimed while renovating their Brentford home.
    Brentford and Isleworth is a Neapolitan ice cream of a constituency, made up of posh Chiswick in the east, predominantly white working-class Brentford in the middle and multicultural Hounslow in the west. A three-way marginal, it is a microcosm of the national election.
    The campaign is being fought on two main issues. The first is, unsurprisingly, scandal. Mary Macleod, the Tory candidate, is keen to exploit anger over Mrs. Keen’s accounting. But Ms. Macleod herself is not untouched by controversy. Rivals claim that she has received money from Lord Ashcroft, a controversial Conservative donor who has " non-domiciled" status and thus is presumed to pay little tax in Britain. Ms. Macleod says the funds came from Conservative headquarters, not directly from Lord Ashcroft, although she accepts that he contributed to them.
    Thanks to Lord Ashcroft or not, Ms. Macleod’s campaign has been a slick one, and the Tories are favorites to overhaul Labour’s 4,411 majority. Ms. Macleod maintains that Labour is her only serious rival. Just as the Conservatives are pushing the message at the national level that a vote for Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is a vote for five more years of Gordon Brown and Labour, so locally they hope to scare off potential Lib Dem voters with the idea that splitting the anti-Labour vote means more of Mrs. Keen.
    The nation’s new-found love affair with the Lib Dems does not yet make them obvious winners in Brentford and Isleworth. The party gained 23% of the vote in 2005, compared with the Tories’ 30% and Labour’s 40%. The Lib Dem candidate, Andrew Daker, provides a sharp contrast to the well-oiled Labour and Conservative machines. Whereas Ms. Macleod has an army of supporters canvassing the streets of Chiswick, Mr. Daker cuts a solitary figure handing out leaflets outside primary schools and train stations. Whereas Ms. Macleod has traversed the country in search of a parliamentary seat—she stood in 1997 in Ross, Skye and Inverness West—Mr. Daker, a local councillor, pushes his neighbourhood roots. His talk rarely drifts from local issues, such as the regeneration of Brentford’s High Street and, most importantly, Heathrow airport.
    Heathrow’s shadow hangs over the constituency and, with scandal is seen as the most important issue in the election. Although the airport is economically vital to the area, noisy jumbos concern many residents and plans for a third runway, supported by Labour, are hugely unpopular. Those plans have now been put on hold, but the fact that Mrs. Keen—who is also lukewarm on the proposal—did not follow 28 Labour MPs in voting for a Conservative motion to rethink expansion is another stick for her rivals to beat her with.
    In the end, however, the contest may well come down less to policies and more to which candidate has thrown the stickier mud. In another reflection of the national campaign, the Tory candidate challenged her Labour rival to a public debate. Unlike Gordon Brown, Mrs. Keen declined. Some suspect she thought she would have more to lose than Ms. Macleod in a public slanging match: critics accuse her of straining for invisibility in the middle of her own campaign. The local paper, the Hounslow and Brentford Times, says that she spoke to them this week for the first time in six months. [br] The phrase "stickier mud" in the last paragraph is a metaphor for______.
选项 A、rules
B、scandals
C、finances
D、supporters
答案 B
解析 语义理解题。由末段第一句可知，(党派之间的)竞争与其说是比较政策上的优势，不如说是看哪个候选人能甩出“更粘的污泥”。回顾前文，本文大部分篇幅都是在讲述大选之前各党派互相曝光，大谈对手的丑闻，结合“污泥”的原意，可以推断出，在这里它指的是让对手撇不清的污点，或者说是让对手无法澄清的丑闻，因此[B]正确。由上述分析可知，“污泥”和“规则”是相对的，因此这个词不可能是用来比喻“规则”的，故排除[A]；本文几乎没有谈及为选举募集资金的事，故排除[C]；由stickier mud所在句的前一段末句可知，Mrs．Keen的对手想方设法寻找其不当之处，以此来击败她，谈的还是丑闻话题，而不是拥护者的问题，因此这一句不可能突然将话题转到拥护者身上，故排除[D]。
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