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:
Muy bien, los de pretender que las plazas sean para aragoneses y que no vega gente de fuera es una tropelía infame al derecho, al civismo y al sentido común. Si algo así lo dijeran en Cataluña ya estaríamos montando el pollo.
La consejera de Educación, Dolores Serrat, ha asegurado que, debido a la tasa de reposición, ve difícil que haya convocatorias de oposiciones de docentes el próximo año.
aragondigital
Serrat ha señalado que la única oferta pública de empleo que se podría poner en marcha es de 30 plazas de Secundaria en diferentes especialidades. Una opción que se encuentra en situación de debate, debido, sobre todo, a que si las comunidades vecinas no convocasen “habría efecto llamada”, lo que generaría “insatisfacción” de los opositores y un mayor coste para la Administración.
14-11-2013 / 15:06 h EFE
La consejera de Educación, Universidad, Cultura y Deporte del Gobierno de Aragón, Dolores Serrat, ha afirmado hoy que será "difícil" que se convoquen en Aragón oposiciones para profesorado de Secundaria en el 2014.
Serrat ha comparecido hoy en el pleno de las Cortes de Aragón, a petición del PSOE, para explicar la política del departamento en materia de personal docente.
En respuesta a la diputada socialista Mayte Pérez, quien ha destacado la necesidad de convocar nuevas plazas de profesorado, Serrat ha apuntado que es un asunto que, en estos momentos, está "a debate".
No obstante, ha anunciado que, en el caso de que no se cambie la tasa de reposición del 10%, ve "difícil" que se pueda convocar oposiciones a Secundaria en 2014, ya que sólo se podrían ofertar 30 plazas y en distintas especialidades.
Además, ha indicado que, en el caso de que no se convoquen en otras Comunidades Autónomas, unas oposiciones en Aragón producirían un efecto llamada que "provocaría insatisfacción, además de costes".
Las últimas oposiciones a plaza de profesorado en Secundaria se realizaron en Aragón en 2011, por lo que deberían haberse convocado en 2013, cada dos años.
Pues lo que debiera resultar difícil es que no haya oposiciones, pues el gobierno se expone a desacatar dos condenas judiciales firmes.
¿Y no habría que dirigirse también a esos grupos parlamentarios que nada replicaron a semejante apología de la ilegalidad?
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