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)
18 comentarios:
Desconozco ese informe de 2004 que se cita y tal vez fuese interesante avanzar una síntesis de su contenido en una futura nota del blog, propongo.
Muy refrescante la columna de Rosa Montero, que no había leído en el diario.
Confiemos en que la época de los duelos esté totalmente superada. Porque si no a lo mejor los de esa asociación no darían abasto.
Acotación:«no dar abasto» (no ser bastante, no tener posibilidad de tregua en una actividad
Es incorrecta la grafía separada "a basto". Ojo, lo dice la Real Academia Española y no el filólogo que asesora a los responsables de este blog.
El Gobierno no da abasto con tanta petición, por ejemplo.
El Justicia de Aragón no da abasto con tanta queja, sería otro ejemplo.
Increible, "dar a basto", ¿quién es basto?
Si no son lecciones de ética, que sean de uso correcto del lenguaje: Manuscrito hallado en Zaragoza, pero en la red.
No toda persona puede dar de sí.
Día 16 de junio de 1996. "Javier, no *doy más de sí", se me desahoga una agobiada compañera de trabajo; en LA RIOJA el futbolista Matute declara: "Pienso que tengo que *dar mucho más de sí"; por la noche, en un anuncio televisivo, un individuo exhausto exclama: "Hoy ya no *doy más de sí" (para dar más de sí necesitaba, claro está, Tauritón). No se trata de una fecha especial ni rara, sino, por el contrario, de muestras cotidianas.
El DRAE define la frase dar de sí como "Extenderse, ensancharse" "Se usa con más propiedad referido a ropa", especifica, e inmediatamente puntualiza que se emplea también en sentido figurado, sin especificar acepciones. Precisamente ese sentido figurado, en el que están los ejemplos citados arriba, es el que nos interesa ahora; con él expresamos, aplicándolo a personas, el significado de 'rendir, poder, desarrollar, abarcar, dar abasto'.
Dar de sí constituye una estructura reflexiva, es decir, que incluye un pronombre objeto que se refiere a la misma persona del sujeto. Consiguientemente, el pronombre reflexivo implicado debe concordar con el sujeto en número y persona: salta a la vista lo aberrante de una hipotética conjugación *Yo se lavo, *tú se lavas, él se lava...; por imperativo de la lógica concordancia decimos Yo me lavo, tú te lavas, él se lava... Y ahí les duele a nuestros ejemplos iniciales: proferir *No doy más de sí supone una discordancia no menos disparatada que la de *Yo se lavo; en ambas expresiones chirrían pronombres de tercera persona ("sí" y "se") referidos a una primera ("yo").
Lo que ocurre es que, como la utilizamos en tercera persona muchísimo más frecuentemente que en las demás, se tiende a considerar, erróneamente, el sí de la locución como parte de una frase hecha e invariable. Ese sí, sin embargo, sólo deberá mantenerse tras la preposición de cuando el sujeto pertenezca a la tercera persona o esté constituido por la segunda "de respeto" usted(es).
Otro problema sobrevenido. La opción alternativa de armonizar el pronombre reflexivo correspondiente en concordancia con el sujeto (No doy más de mí, Podéis dar más de vosotros) es teóricamente impecable, ideal; no obstante, por inusitada, casi inaudita, puede resultar extraña. Si usted así lo percibe, dispone del recurso a otro verbo sinónimo: en lugar de No doy más de mí (correctísimo), puede decir No puedo más, No abarco más, No rindo más, No doy (más) abasto...; pero, por favor, no desbarre con el dislate *No doy más de sí, que protesta la armonía.
¡Protesta la armonía!
Etimología: Del bajo latín bastus (suficiente).
Y así dicen que se dice en Aragón:
No dar a basto a hacer algo, QUEMAMONTONO.
El Pleno del Consejo Económico y Social aprobó por 38 votos a favor, 2 en contra y 2 abstenciones el informe sobre temporalidad en el empleo público.
Amplio consenso, como cabe apreciar.
La tasa de temporalidad en el empleo dentro del sector público vasco ha aumentado diez puntos en los últimos cuatro años hasta alcanzar un porcentaje de un 32,5%, según un análisis de la evolución del mercado efectuado por CCOO de Euskadi. Los datos difundidos ayer por este sindicato, que ha utilizado como fuente el Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE), ponen de manifiesto que en el mismo período -de 2004 a 2008- la tasa de temporalidad en el sector privado ha descendido 2,5 puntos hasta situarse en un 26,4%. Por contra, hace cuatro años la tasa de temporalidad en el sector público vasco se situaba en el 22,6%.
Tradicionalmente el sector público ha mantenido una tasa de temporalidad menor que el privado. Pero fue en el ejercicio 2007 cuando la situación cambió y, en el segundo trimestre de ese año, el porcentaje en la Administración subía cuatro puntos en comparación interanual, hasta el 31,3%, mientras que en las empresas la tasa bajó casi medio punto, hasta el 27,7%.
Un hijo orgulloso de su padre:
Como hijo de policía ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡VIVA LA POLICÍA ESPAÑOLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pedazo de profesionales
Que no transfieran nunca las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad a las Comunidades Autónomas: son un elemento esencial del Estado de Derecho.
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied soldiers clambered aboard heaving landing craft and braved six-foot swells, waves of machine gun fire, and more than 6 million mines to claim a stretch of sand at a place called Normandy. Their mission was to carve out an Allied foothold on the edge of Nazi-occupied Europe for the army of more than one million that would follow them in the summer of 1944. This army would burst forth from the beachhead, rolling across Europe into the heart of Germany, liberating millions, toppling a genocidal regime, and ending a nightmare along the way. But it all began on this beach in France, with an army of teenagers on a day called D-Day.
The 65th anniversary of D-Day will find our youngest D-Day and WWII veterans turning 82 years of age. The years to come will find ever fewer of them among us, and fewer still able to travel and share their stories. Because that day will arrive all too soon, the National D-Day Memorial will present “Overlord Echoes” June 4-7, 2009 to allow veterans and the public to share information and perspectives on D-Day with the larger purpose of preserving the lessons and legacy of that decisive moment in history.
In its historical and human consequences, D-Day is epic. A turning point in the course of the war, D-Day signaled the beginning of the end of the age of fascism and the return of hope to millions in occupied nations globally. Moreover, as the largest land, air, and sea invasion in history, D-Day drew upon human and military resources on an unprecedented scale, one consequence of which was the creation of an unprecedented number of veterans of a single battle. There are more veterans of D-Day than any other engagement in the Second World War, derived from every sector of our population and reflecting a wide variety of backgrounds, each one with a distinct and unique story of D-Day to share – the story of ordinary men and women living in extraordinary times.
The 65th Anniversary of D-Day represents one of the last best opportunities for dialogue about this pivotal moment in history between large numbers of those who lived it, those who study it, and those who live with its effects. “Overlord Echoes” is designed to take full advantage of this extraordinary moment.
PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama travels to Normandy Saturday to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings on beaches in northern France that led to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
Residents in Normandy towns decked their streets in U.S. and French flags in preparation for Obama's visit and posters welcoming Obama read "Yes, we ca(e)n," a cross between Obama's campaign slogan and the name of a local city, Caen.
His expected presence has almost overshadowed the D-Day event, to the point that French President Nicolas Sarkozy's failure to invite Britain's Queen Elizabeth prompted accusations that he was trying to make space for himself next to Obama.
Paris said it had respected protocol. Britain said the queen had expected an invitation but had taken no offence, and London is sending Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Prince Charles. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is also due to attend.
It is a tradition for American presidents to visit the landing beaches at Normandy where the June 6, 1944, invasion by U.S., British, Canadian and other troops began a rollback of the Nazi war machine entrenched in Western Europe and helped end World War Two the following year.
Ronald Reagan went to the D-Day beaches on the 40th anniversary in 1984, Bill Clinton was there in 1994 for the 50th and George W. Bush was there in 2002, and in 2004 for the 60th anniversary commemoration.
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