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)
5 comentarios:
Hay que dar continuidad a este trabajo.
Efectivamente, hay que cambiar el rumbo de las administraciones hacia la legalidad.
Me alegra ver con tanta fuerza a la asociación, de nuevo.
Iñigo Barreda.
La utilización del ‘procedimiento especial de derechos fundamentales’ para recurrir contra decisiones de personal de la Administración está dando sus frutos últimamente en el Tribunal Supremo, particularmente cuando se trata del derecho de acceso a cargos públicos previsto en el artículo 23.2 de la Constitución.
Este mismo artículo ha sido aplicado recientemente por el Tribunal Supremo en dos sentencias clave de la jurisprudencia más reciente. Una de ellas es la relativa a las relaciones de puestos de trabajo de la Administración, que deben respetar derechos fundamentales y la igualdad en la asignación de niveles de complemento de destino (caso Departamento de Salud de Aragón, ver páginas precedentes en este número de la revista).
La otra sentencia, inaudita en nuestra jurisprudencia por excepcional, anula la Oferta de Empleo Público de Aragón del 2007 por no incluir las plazas de interinos. 2.400 plazas que ahora deberá ofertar la Administración para regularizar la situación, según informa la Asociación para la Defensa de la Función Pública Aragonesa, promotora y parte en la reclamación judicial.
La Junta de Andalucía aprueba hoy la convocatoria de 371 plazas de empleo público para 2013
Martes, 23 de Julio de 2013
El Consejo de Gobierno de la Junta de Andalucía aprobará hoy martes la convocatoria de la oferta de empleo público de la Administración General del gobierno autonómico para 2013, que asciende a 371 plazas.
Según han avanzado a Europa Press fuentes de la Oficina del Portavoz, esta convocatoria de 371 plazas está limitada por la legislación básica estatal, que impide la incorporación de nuevo personal salvo en determinados sectores prioritarios, a los que, no obstante, se le impone una tasa de reposición de efectivos del diez por ciento.
Así pues, las 371 plazas que el Gobierno andaluz convoca para 2013 cumplen con esta tasa de reposición, de obligado cumplimiento para las comunidades autónomas.
Dentro de estos límites, la Junta dará prioridad a las plazas de empleo público vinculadas a las áreas de gestión financiera y de lucha contra el fraude fiscal.
Europa Press
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