No coherent ideas

The latest No campaign video, targeted at undecided female voters, has created a storm of protest on social media and in the press.

It has been labelled as ­patronising to women, sexist, and insulting. It is all of these things, and more. It is the product of a campaign so bereft of ideas and coherent policies that it has seen fit to serve up a dog’s breakfast of doorstep soundbites to the ­Scottish people.

The engaged, informed and ­serious debate about Scotland’s future that is taking place in every corner of the land, on both sides of the argument, puts this ridiculous concoction of ­indecisiveness, passivity and ignorance to 
shame.

If we swallow this story whole, we are left with the depressing vision of a nation lacking in any intellectual vigour, a real basket case.

We should not succumb to the scaremongering tactics of Better Together by acting as a nation that is too fearful to take a step into its own future, and too ­lacking in self-confidence to ­exercise our individual and ­collective capacity to think ­deeply and well in order to ­resolve deep societal problems and manage our affairs better.

Because therein lies the door to a confident, thinking, fairer and more prosperous Scotland.

(Dr) Margaret Kirkwood

Formerly Reader in Education,

University of Strathclyde

Member of Academics for Yes.