This was going to wait until the 1st of September. I figured that was a good date — the start of the most important month in Scotland’s history — for me to finally admit that I’ve been wrong. That the politically ideology I’ve been backing since the independence referendum was just an idea that someday might happen is not the right one.

I am a No voter. As I start to write this, today is the day after No campaign screened the most ill-advised, patronising, condescending, negative-by-way-of-ignorance campaign message I’ve ever seen. Even bat-shit insane American interest groups don’t go as far as talking down to their own electorate.

Campaign messages are supposed to be empowering, enabling, “You’re making the right decision because…” Even though that message assumes the viewer has already made up their mind, it captures more than a few undecideds because they just want to feel as awesome and empowered as the guy on TV. This wasn’t that. The message here was “Politics scary. Politics confusing. Vote No.”

It isn’t even a gender issue, though feminist groups and individuals are among those rightly battering the ad on social media for its portrayal of a mother who is apparently smart enough to raise a family, but not enough to read a paper. It doesn’t really matter that she’s a 1950s stereotype of a woman, because this is what they think of the whole undecided electorate. That we’re all too busy, or lazy, or ignorant, or stupid to read the news. And since we don’t read the news, we’re only vaguely aware of the questions surrounding Scottish independence. We might have heard someone on the bus talking about Scotland keeping the pound. Or the guy down the pub who reckons there’s an ocean of oil under the North Sea. Or that boring bit in the papers about Scotland not being allowed into Europe, before we got distracted by the photo of that bird in the bikini.

It’s a disgusting way to run a campaign. I can sympathise with the No campaign somewhat — it’s difficult to ‘sell’ a status quo, especially when the current status quo is a government that the electorate didn’t vote for. But preaching ignorance is not the right way to appeal to the electorate, that’s inexcusable.

The day after that campaign ad aired, some faction of the Yes campaign did something altogether more positive:

In just one small gesture, that probably only took a half hour to think up and another half hour to execute, the Yes camp proved that it was more in touch with the electorate, and that they were having much more fun than the doom-and-gloom No camp. They didn’t have to address the No’s negative campaign directly, it was already getting ripped apart by a hashtag. As with every other day of the campaign, the Yes campaign have done a great job of presenting themselves as not just selling an option in a referendum, but as a movement for real political change. They don’t seem like a political party even though they’re far more of a single party (the SNP) than the No’s (Lab, Con, LibDem).