Like the battle of Waterloo, the battle for Scotland was a damn close-run thing. The effects of Thursday’s no vote are enormous – though not as massive as the consequences of a yes would have been.
The vote against independence means, above all, that the 307-year Union survives. It therefore means that the UK remains a G7 economic power and a member of the UN security council. It means Scotland will get more devolution. It means David Cameron will not be forced out. It means any Ed Miliband-led government elected next May has the chance to serve a full term, not find itself without a majority in 2016, when the Scots would have left. It means the pollsters got it right, Madrid will sleep a little more easily, and it means the banks will open on Friday morning as usual.
But the battlefield is still full of resonant lessons. The win, though close, was decisive. It looks like a 54%-46% or thereabouts. That’s not as good as it looked like being a couple of months ago. But it’s a lot more decisive than the recent polls had hinted. Second, it was women who saved the union. In the polls, men were decisively in favour of yes. The yes campaign was in some sense a guy thing. Men wanted to make a break with the Scotland they inhabit. Women didn’t. Third, this was to a significant degree a class vote too. Richer Scotland stuck with the union — so no did very well in a lot of traditonal SNP areas. Poorer Scotland, Labour Scotland, slipped towards yes, handing Glasgow, Dundee and North Lanarkshire to the independence camp. Gordon Brown stopped the slippage from becoming a rout, perhaps, but the questions for Labour — and for left politics more broadly — are profound.
For Scots, the no vote means relief for some, despair for others, both on the grand scale. For those who dreamed that a yes vote would take Scots on a journey to a land of milk, oil and honey, the mood this morning will be grim. Something that thousands of Scots wanted to be wonderful or merely just to witness has disappeared. The anticlimax will be cruel and crushing. For others, the majority, there will be thankfulness above all but uneasiness too. Thursday’s vote exposed a Scotland divided down the middle and against itself. Healing that hurt will not be easy or quick. It’s time to put away all flags.
The immediate political question now suddenly moves to London. Gordon Brown promised last week that work will start on Friday on drawing up the terms of a new devolution settlement. That may be a promise too far after the red-eyed adrenalin-pumping exhaustion of the past few days. But the deal needs to be on the table by the end of next month. It will not be easy to reconcile all the interests – Scots, English, Welsh, Northern Irish and local. But it is an epochal opportunity. The plan, like the banks, is too big to fail.
Alex Salmond and the SNP are not going anywhere. They will still govern Scotland until 2016. There will be speculation about Salmond’s position, and the SNP will need to decide whether to run in 2016 on a second referendum pledge. More immediately, the SNP will have to decide whether to go all-out win to more Westminster seats in the 2015 general election, in order to hold the next government’s feet to the fire over the promised devo-max settlement. Independence campaigners will feel gutted this morning. But they came within a whisker of ending the United Kingdom on Thursday. One day, perhaps soon, they will surely be back.
(Artículo de Martin Kettle, publicado en "The Guardian" el 19 de septiembre de 2014)
6 comentarios:
Creo que es una idea interesante realizar un ciclo sobre el futuro de la función pública, abordándole la cuestión desde distintos enfoques y tratando de realizar una aproximación crítica a elementos fundamentales que apuntan o esbozan el nuevo modelo de empleo público o de función pública.
Sería bueno que los responsables del grupo de trabajo que se ocupa de función pública vaya levantando acta de lo tratado en las sesiones y promueva reuniones más de debate, en las que podamos analizar cuestiones básicas a tener claras en el decisivo proceso de elaboración de la ley aragonesa de función pública.
Las cosas no se cambian por la aprobación de una norma ni es posible confiar en que unos responsables que incumplen la ley en vigor vayan a cumplir la nueva ley.
La vocación de vivir al margen de la ley es el peor contexto para afrontar un cambio normativo, pues se va a tratar de crear todos los ámbitos posibles de discrecionalidad o de garantías meramente retóricas, sin voluntad alguna de respetarlas.
Hola:
Sería estupendo para la gente que estamos interesada en la conferencia pero que no podemos asistir, que se tomara nota de las ideas principales de los ponentes y que se colgaran en el blog.
Eso está muy bien pensado, y así reeditamos aquella vieja insitución de nuestros años de universidad que era la comisión de apuntes.
Una nota del nuevo modelo de función pública parece ser la pérdida de centralidad del puesto de trabajo, para volver a la categoría profesional o introducir como elemento novedoso y fundamental la evaluación del desempeño, pero produce inquietud la indeterminación del sistema de evaluación.
¿Qué otras sesiones se prevé realizar en el ciclo? ¿Qué temas se quieren abordar?
La sesión de ayer, con la que se iniciaba el ciclo, estuvo verdaderamente interesante y sirvió para hacerse una idea bastante aproximada del nuevo escenario en el que ha de moverse la función pública y del esfuerzo que nos corresponde hacer a los funcionarios para que el desarrollo por parte de la Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón sea un modelo racional y profesional, en el que se refuercen los necesarios principios de mérito y capacidad tanto en el ingreso como en el desarrollo de la carrera profesional.
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