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)
7 comentarios:
Y las pruebas de la Oferta de 2011, entonces?
Los plazos legales le importan a alguien? Qué sanción hay por incumplirlos?
Estoy totalmente a favor de que se denuncien las irregularidades en los procesos selectivos del Gobierno de Aragón pero en este caso se está tratando el tema con mucha frivolidad, ya que la mayoría de los aprobados no habían preparado en esas academias mencionadas. Por tanto no se puede perjudicar de nuevo a estos opositores anulando el examen. La sentencia del TSJ Galicia, Sala de lo Contencioso-Administrativo, sec. 1ª, de 4 de julio de 2012, dictada al recurso 132/2006 valida una oposición en la que los demandantes alegaban que para el contenido del primer ejercicio se utilizó la práctica totalidad de las preguntas elaboradas por una academia formada a través del Colegio de Veterinarios de Pontevedra, con lo que se podía producir vulneración del principio de igualdad, toda vez que no estuvo acreditado que el conocimiento de esas preguntas sólo favoreciera a los alumnos de esta academia y que el resultado de la oposición no determinó que los alumnos de esta academia hubieren sido los que mejores calificaciones obtuvieron.
Las circunstancias aquí concurrentes están muy alejadas de las acontecidas en este caso al que se acaba de aludir. Ahora bien, es cierto que no se ha acreditado ventaja de los alumnos de las academias acusadas lo que debe excluir cualquier tipo de efecto anulatorio relacionado con cualquier pretendida vulneración de los principios de igualdad, mérito y capacidad.
Bueno, dejemos que valore las circunstancias la Dirección General de la Función Pública.
Totalmente de acuerdo. Que se denuncie, que se investigue y que se sancione a los responsables de las irregularidades y a quienes se han beneficiado ilícitamente de ellas. Pero sólo a ellos.
Resulta cuando menos chocante que, antes de cualquier análisis, se adelante una supuesta “solución” por lo menos igualmente injusta que aquella que se pretende atacar.
¿Por qué repetir el examen?
Y, por otra parte, ¿qué pasa con los derechos de quienes han aprobado legítimamente?
¿Se les despoja y punto?
¿Qué dice para estos casos la Carta de Servicios del IAAP? ¿Cuál es el compromiso de calidad en los procesos selectivos?
Una resolución jurídica no despoja nada, si se ha obtenido en un proceso viciado.
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