Escocia (Continuación)

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El 1 de mayo, Inglaterra y Escocia han celebrado el 300º aniversario del tratado que unió a los dos países para formar el Reino Unido. Las festividades no han durado mucho. Hoy los escoceses van a votar lo que se prevé que sea la concesión de una gran fortaleza parlamentaria al Partido Nacional Escocés (PNE), una fuerza separatista que exige la celebración de un referéndum popular para decidir la escisión.

Pero las perspectivas de independencia escocesa no están nada claras. Aunque el PNE triunfe en las elecciones de hoy, no hay ninguna seguridad de que pueda obtener los escaños suficientes para someter la propuesta a votación en 2010.…  Seguir leyendo »

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It is important not to misread the mood of Scotland as it goes to the polls tomorrow. The desire to punish Labour is palpable, as it is throughout the UK. The difference is that in Scotland the Conservatives remain a broken force and the SNP is the only credible alternative. There is no evidence that this equates with widespread support for the SNP's flagship policy of separatism - those wanting to break up the UK account for at most a quarter of the electorate, according to the polls. (Higher numbers in favour of "independence" include many who want more devolved powers within the UK.)…  Seguir leyendo »

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And the star of the show is ... nationalism. Tomorrow all eyes will be upon it. Nationalism is the one genie that escaped the bottle of Tony Blair's conservatism. In 10 years it has reshaped the political map of Scotland and Wales and plunged the English into an identity crisis. We are all nationalists now. Far from stemming the tide, devolution has impelled it forward. Nationalist parties may or may not be "in government" in Scotland and Wales after tomorrow, but they have altered the terms of trade of politics.

For half a century after the second world war nationalism was forbidden fruit.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Los electores escoceses irán a las urnas el próximo jueves en los comicios más cruciales desde el establecimiento del Parlamento autonómico, en 1999. Los sondeos muestran que el Partido Nacional Escocés (SNP por sus siglas en inglés) aventaja al Partido Laborista, que ha dominado la escena política en Escocia desde hace medio siglo. De resultar elegido, el SNP ha prometido un referéndum sobre la independencia para 2010.

El éxito electoral del SNP debe mucho al descontento existente hacia el Gobierno laborista de Westminster. En Inglaterra, el Partido Conservador, que con David Cameron ha enterrado la herencia 'thatcherista' y ha logrado reinventarse a imagen del Nuevo Laborismo de Blair, encabeza las encuestas.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The biggest winner in next week’s Scottish elections could be the law of unintended consequences. If the Scottish National Party emerges as the dominant force in the Edinburgh Parliament, its campaign for independence could change not just Scotland but also England and the rest of Europe in dramatic ways that voters neither expect nor desire.

For England, there would be a seismic shift to the right, as the Labour Party was sent into permanent opposition by the loss of its Scottish heartland. For Europe the contagion effects of the first peaceful break-up of an advanced democratic country would be felt in many regions whose secessionist tendencies have historically been much stronger than Scotland’s – Catalonia, the Basque Country, Corsica, Wallonia, parts of Northern Italy, maybe even Bavaria.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Among the dreadlocked, tattooed and multiply-pierced bicycle couriers hanging out in Glasgow's only neo-anarchist cafe, you'll find a few men in suits who don't fit the usual customer profile. There's Lord Gould of Brookwood, the pollster formerly known as Philip Gould, alongside the transport secretary, Douglas Alexander, and Downing Street strategist John McTernan. Picking up a latte at the anarcho-collective coffee house makes good sense: it's just across the road from Labour's campaign HQ for next Thursday's Scottish elections, and all three men are spending a lot of time there just now.

Indeed, Labour's rivals say the party is so fearful of defeat on May 3, it has dispatched a UK cabinet minister to Scotland every week since October.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Sometimes history has a sense of humour. On May 1, we shall mark (celebrate or mourn, according to taste) the 300th anniversary of the union between England and Scotland. The following day we shall mark (ditto) the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's prime ministership.And the day after that, it seems certain that the largest number of seats in the Edinburgh assembly will be won by the Scottish National party on a platform of national independence, which was specifically what devolution was meant to avert. As if that weren't rich enough, only weeks later the member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath will probably become prime minister and inherit a mixture of political and constitutional crisis.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The one sure way to irritate a Scotsman is to call him an Englishman. That happens to Scots all the time when they travel abroad, and many of them feel as strongly about it as Hercule Poirot felt when people called him a Frenchman. “Belgian,” the great detective would say, with polite emphasis, mustache bristling. And of course it would be unwise to call a man in green on the streets of New York City on St. Patrick’s Day an Englishman.

There’s an old Scottish toast, lightly ironic in its tone but reflecting quite a strong sense of Scottish specialness. It goes like this: “Here’s tae us; wha’s like us?”…  Seguir leyendo »

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Ivanhoe fue la novela que --con ¿Quo vadis? y Los tres mosqueteros-- más me impactó de niño. El templario sir Brian de Bois Gilbert --no Ivanhoe-- fue mi primer héroe, y la judía Rebeca --no la impávida lady Rowena-- mi primera heroína. Por Ivanhoe conocí a Walter Scott y, gracias a este, se me hizo familiar la Escocia que el recreaba en sus novelas: Waverley, Rob-Roy, Guy Mannering y El corazón de Midlothian. Era una Escocia de cartón piedra. Scott, nacido en las Tierras Bajas --Lowlands--, recreó las Tierras Altas --Highlands-- con cierta dosis de inventiva.

Sir ir más lejos, cuando organizó --en 1822-- la visita del rey Jorge IV a Escocia, impulsó y puso de moda el uso del kilt --la falda escocesa--, a cuyo fin los sastres tuvieron que inventarse algún tartan --tela cuyos colores determinan la pertenencia a uno u otro clan--.…  Seguir leyendo »

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A horseman galloping south across the Scottish Border, guarded by troopers, and carrying a small bundle of documents: that is how the Union between Scotland and England really began, 300 years ago last night. The rider was bringing to Westminster the signed articles of the Treaty of Union, which had been approved by the Scottish Parliament the day before. The final vote, on article eight — the duty to be paid on Scottish salt — had been a fractious but lacklustre affair. The opposition had begun to lose heart. They knew the result was a foregone conclusion, and many of the country members simply failed to turn up.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The English could be forgiven for thinking the Scots an ungrateful bunch. For 300 years they have been joined with England, enjoying the fruits that marriage brings, asking for and receiving generous gifts (home rule, for instance) while not losing their sense of identity.

Yet instead of marking their approaching anniversary with an affirmation of love or a renewal of vows, the Scots seem to be toying with divorce.

The Act of Union of January 16, 1707, brought prosperity to Scotland and pre-empted the intellectual flowering of the Enlightenment. (The English didn’t do too badly, either.) But the celebrations will be muted because the Scots can’t make up their minds whether they want to celebrate the union or whether they even want to remain a part of it.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Catalonia, from where I write, occupies the top-right-hand part of Spain. Abutting France, it includes the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees and the Costa Brava. Its capital is Barcelona and the country (for it feels itself to be a country) is modern, industrialised and populous — but its heart and soul are still in its wild, empty scenery, rural hinterland, and long and intermittently abused national history.

Catalonia has a lesson for the Tories in their attitude to Scottish nationalism in the year ahead. You will be hearing a lot about Scotland as the March elections to the Edinburgh Parliament loom.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The union between Scotland and England has a good claim to be the most enduring and successful international partnership in history, yet the atmosphere on the eve of its 300th anniversary is anything but celebratory. If opinion polls are to be believed, a mood of sourness appears to have taken hold, with a majority of voters on both sides of the border willing to entertain the idea that it might be better for Scotland and England to go their separate ways. With the SNP going into the Scottish parliamentary elections next May ahead of the field, it is not inconceivable that divorce proceedings could begin as early as next year.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Anyone who is against Tony Blair’s decision on Trident should move briskly north to Scotland, where they can appreciate the incoherence of an anti-nuclear stand. The Scottish National Party, which is leading in the opinion polls, is against giving harbour space to nuclear submarines, and would refuse to allow them to anchor at Faslane on the Clyde. They would, therefore, have to move south to Barrow-in-Furness, depriving Scotland of 11,000 jobs.

It’s an odd manifesto pledge: “We guarantee to lose the country 11,000 jobs.” But there is an even odder one to come. Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, mumbles about having diesel-powered submarines instead.…  Seguir leyendo »

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On the eve of the 300th anniversary of the 1707 Anglo-Scottish union, perhaps the most remarkable fact is that this union of two historic nations has survived so long. Today it has more critics in Scotland than at any time since the 18th century, a mood that seems to be reflected in the electorate. Nationalists cheered the publication last week of an opinion poll in which 52% of Scottish respondents were in favour of independence.

As European history shows, mere geographical proximity is not sufficient to sustain a long-term union. Northern Ireland and the Irish republic, Spain and Portugal, Norway and Sweden - all provide examples of connections that have proved to be ephemeral.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Scottish independence is now an even more popular cause in England than it is in Scotland, according to the opinion polls. It seems that many Sassenachs do not see why there should be so many Scots running England when they have an expensive Parliament of their own.

This is bad news for Gordon Brown. Certainly, he must hope not to fall victim to the same xenophobic ridicule dished out to Britain’s first Scottish Prime Minister, James Stuart, Earl of Bute.

As Samuel Johnson so frequently deplored, mid-18th-century London was full of Scots on the make, grasping the opportunities proffered them by the 1707 Act of Union.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I think the word is panic. Last week the prime minister, chancellor of the exchequer, home secretary, defence secretary, trade secretary and Scots ministerial expatriates galore travelled in a posse north to a Labour conference in Oban, like a bunch of Spanish hidalgos racing back from the fleshpots of Madrid to quell a revolt in their home province.Their objective was to suppress one man, Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National party. An opinion poll had shown support for Salmond's crusade, an independent Scotland, rising to 52% of the electorate. Those regarding themselves as Scottish had risen from half to three-quarters in 25 years, while those saying "British" had halved to just 20%.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I’ve long had this one, pleasant fantasy: which is that, somehow, people get what they say they want, but it all happens in some kind of parallel existence and I don’t have to suffer from their preferences. Examples might be Osama bin Laden is left in Afghanistan, speed cameras are removed, there’s a Lib Dem government or Ken Livingstone becomes mayor of London.

On Sunday I was thinking about Scotland. A series of weekend polls seemed to be suggesting that the Scottish National Party could come out top in the elections in May, and that right now a majority of Scots would favour a move to complete independence from the United Kingdom.…  Seguir leyendo »

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The current prime minister could hardly have put it more starkly. Nationalism "is ... the basest metal of politics, the politics of grievance". And, for once, the prime minister we are about to get agrees. Sever the ties that bind and "it's not only bad for economics, but bad for the solidarity that should exist ... across countries in the world".Are they belabouring Sinn Féin, the Daily Mail, some dodgy new government in Warsaw? No: it's that time of year again - conference season for the Scottish Labour party. And this time there's an edge of desperation to the Oban attack.…  Seguir leyendo »

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By Peter Preston (THE GUARDIAN, 30/10/06):

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make totally inchoate (or, as the Electoral Reform Society would say, a world-beating "test-bed" for voting systems). Yes, it's Scotland, with the land Ruth Kelly calls England only a few yards away over the border. And yes, it's a world-beating mess that only mass boredom with the intricacies of democracy, inflicted by too many Liberal Democrat party broadcasts over the years, prevents us from recognising as absurdity. Step back for a moment and contemplate this unmade bed.

Voting systems matter because different systems yield different results, and are custom-built to do so.…  Seguir leyendo »