Jubilant Scots Cheer Vote for Own Parliament

EDINBURGH, Scotland — Edinburgh brimmed with joy and confidence Friday after Scots voted resoundingly to form a Parliament in their capital after 290 years without one.

Jubilation was clear as patriotic flags appeared in windows overnight and a huge Scottish St. Andrews flag with a diagonal white cross on a dark blue background was draped around the headquarters of the Scottish National Party.

In the Scottish capital, people rushing to work stopped to cheer a group of kilted patriots dancing in Parliament Square, the site of the ancient Scottish assembly that merged with the English Parliament in 1707.

In a two-part referendum Thursday, 74.3% voted for a 129-seat Parliament to administer many aspects of Scottish life, and 63.5% voted to give it authority to set taxes.

The Scottish Parliament will oversee health service, education and training, local government, housing, economic development, transportation, law and order, the environment, farming and fishing, and sports and the arts.

The British Parliament will retain authority over foreign and defense policy, economic, monetary and employment policies, social security and sensitive areas such as broadcasting, gambling and abortion.

Britain’s Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair, greeted in Edinburgh by a female drum band, said: “This is a good day for Scotland, and it is a good day for Britain and the United Kingdom.”

Blair told cheering supporters: “The era of big centralized government is over.”

New regional parliaments are one plank of a bold campaign by the Labor government for constitutional reform.

Moves are afoot to update the monarchy, hand greater power to the disparate regions of the kingdom, which includes Wales and Northern Ireland, and reform the outmoded House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament.