Former Scotland winger Steve Munro said they have no understanding of children

Leaders accused of not having to worry about future as they are childless

The two leaders of the Scottish National Party want to break up the Union because they have no children and do not understand families, it has been claimed.

Former Scottish rugby players said Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon do not have to worry about future generations of Scots as they are childless.

At a pro-union campaign event outside Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Steve Munro, who earned 10 caps for Scotland, said the pair ‘don’t have any understanding of kids as they don’t have children’.

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Alex Salmond has no understanding of the needs of future generations as he does not have children, it has been claimed. The First Minister of Scotland spoke with a mother and daughter in Aberdeen yesterday

The 56-year-old former winger added: ‘I’ve got children and I’m thinking about their futures. Salmond and Sturgeon have re-established divisions in our country.’

Andy Irvine, 62, a former president of the Scottish Rugby Union who earned 51 Scottish caps, added: ‘I’m a parent of four children and four grandchildren.

‘I may be coming towards the end of my life, but they’re starting theirs and they’d be better in the Union.

‘I’m a proud Scot and a proud Brit too. I have to think about the impact on their livelihoods.’ Mr Salmond’s wife Moira is 17 years his senior.

The 59-year-old met her when she was his boss at the Scottish Office in the 1970s. They were married in 1981 and have no children.

Neither of the two SNP leaders has children. They were yesterday accused of re-establishing divisions by former Scottish rugby players

Miss Sturgeon, 44, who is also childless, married Peter Murrell, chief executive of the SNP, in 2010. Other members of the SNP leadership who do have children include finance minister John Swinney, who has three.

Women have consistently shown a lack of enthusiasm for Scottish independence in opinion polls, with men more likely to back a Yes vote. Commentators have claimed that Mr Salmond has a problem appealing to women as he is seen as too aggressive.

Both the Yes and No campaigns have tried to use the subject of family to win over voters. The pro-union Better Together campaign urged people to vote against breaking up the UK if they love their family.

Their posters have carried slogans including: ‘We love our kids, we’re saying no thanks’, ‘I love my family, I’m saying no thanks’ and ‘I love Scotland, I’m saying no thanks’. Yes Scotland has used a poster showing two young children with the words: ‘With Scotland’s wealth they’re heading for a better future’.

At yesterday’s rally, former Scottish rugby international Andy Nicol said the players had become involved in the campaign because of Mr Salmond’s suggestion that patriotic Scots would vote Yes. He said: ‘He crossed the line with the insinuation that you can only be a patriotic Scot by voting Yes. Alex Salmond was very divisive with what he said about Team Scotland.’

Mr Nicol said there were ‘many unknowns’ in the nationalists’ plan for independence, including whether it could mean a change to the British and Irish Lions team.

All the lads agreed they'd punched plenty of Englishmen in their time: QUENTIN LETTS sees Murrayfield's giants muscle in

Some of Scotland’s finest former rugby brawn gave the referendum No vote a punt upfield yesterday morning.

The venue was Murrayfield Stadium, scene of many a slaughter of England hopes in the past.

Through the September mist emerged 18 blokes, thickset, a couple tall enough to change the bulbs in a lamp-post. When they crouched for a team photo, you could hear the knee joints creak.

‘I’ve spilt blood for my country,’ said former prop and Grand Slam captain David Sole. ‘The Yes campaign people seem to think they have exclusive rights to Scottish patriotism.

'It can be intimidating to declare which side of the fence you sit on but we make a good team with the Union.’

Scottish rugby legends gathered at Murrayfield today to pledge their support of the Better Together campaign

Mr Sole, 52, said he had no wish ever to go into politics. Good grief, no. He had organised this event with Kenny Logan (70 caps) and Gavin Hastings (61 caps in a blue and occasionally blood-spattered jersey as fullback).

They did it by themselves and told the No strategists they could make what they wanted of it.

This was the voice of the rugby clubhouse speaking, plain as that – though the Scottish Rugby Union is having to maintain an impartial stance.

‘We could do with fewer politicians,’ said Steve Munro, who played on the (right) wing for Scotland in the early 1980s.

Alluding to the SNP’s leader and his deputy, Mr Munro added: ‘The trouble with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon is they don’t have kids so they don’t understand parents’ fears about the next generation.

'The nationalists have established divisions in our country. If you walk down Ayr High Street wearing a No badge, things can get pretty aggressive.’

It is hard to imagine any ‘aye’ types in Ayr wanting to get itchy with 17-stone, 6ft 6in Doddie Weir, who at the age of 44 still has the Buzz Lightyear jaw and corrugated nose of a man who has witnessed a few haymakers at the bottom of a ruck.

He posed alongside the likes of Roger Baird, Jim and Finlay Calder and Scott Hastings.

Former winger Iwan Tukalo said it was ‘easy for the Yes vote to play the emotional card but there is more to this debate than just the Saltire’.

Doddie Weir said walking down the street in Ayr wearing a No badge could be difficult. Somehow its hard to imagine the Aye types wanting to get itchy wit 6ft 6in Doddie, pictured handing off an opponent

Euan Kennedy asserted gravely that he was a ‘passionate Scotsman’ and had answered the call to do this photocall in ‘the blink of an eye’ because he felt so strongly about the Union.

An older chap introduced himself as John Douglas, who played No 8 for Scotland in the early 1960s. ‘I was three inches taller in those days,’ he said.

The lads agreed happily that they had punched plenty of Englishmen in their time, but after a game they would all have friendly beers with the boys in white.

Your sketchwriter fulfilled a boyhood dream and met Andy Irvine, Scotland’s star player in the 1970s.

Now a 62-year-old property developer, he was still instantly recognisable as the fullback with the golden boot. ‘I genuinely believe in this cause,’ he said, eyes blazing.

‘I hope peace and harmony break out because it would be tragic for the wounds of this referendum to fester.’

Later, Ed Miliband walked a couple of hundred yards down Edinburgh’s Princes Street, popping into shopfronts to talk to employees.

There was no trouble, though one frail, well-spoken socialist lady told him she was ‘very disappointed in him’.

Octogenarian Isobel (she did not wish to vouchsafe her surname) told me she had already done a postal vote – for yes – but might have changed her mind if she had met Ed Mil earlier. ‘He’s too late,’ she said.