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OKAY, this is a big one. It’s an issue I’ve been tiptoeing around for a while, something I’ve been avoiding declaring on for various reasons.

And then, last week, two apparently unrelated events finally pushed me over the edge into a decision.

Here’s the decision first – Scotland should undoubtedly vote yes for independence next year.

And now to those events that took place on opposite sides of the world and which led me to that decision.

Firstly, I don’t know if you’ve watched the footage of the New Zealand parliament voting in favour of legalising gay marriage. If you haven’t, get thee to YouTube. It’s amazing.

Once the Speaker announces that those in favour have won the vote, the whole of the public gallery, and then the New Zealand MPs themselves, all spontaneously burst into song.

They sing something called Pokarekare Ana, a traditional Maori love song. It’s an incredible moment of love, humanity

and decency – a roomful of people, of politicians no less, embracing each other and bathing in the warmth of having done the right thing.

As I watched it, as I contrasted this beautiful scene against the footage played out in our House of Commons every single week – of the hateful, braying, chubby faces of Cameron and Osborne as they terrorise the poor and the weak – it occurred to me, Scotland could do a New Zealand too.

Secondly, there was the reaction of a Twitter troll to my friend Basil’s daughter during Margaret Thatcher’s funeral.

Sophie is 20, too young to remember the Iron Lady, and she posted a text on Twitter her father had sent her during the funeral. Basil’s text said: “Just remember the hype that Thatcher was good for the country is bulls**t. She hated the working class, that’s us. And those mourners think the same.”

Sophie was then bullied by some dreadful, illiterate English guy who opened with: “Your dad is victim class, not working class,” before: “I take it you don’t mind giving back that iPhone. Love the English taxpayer what paid for it.”

That is to say, this moron simply assumed Sophie was living on benefits just because her dad had suggested they were working class.

She doesn’t. Nor does her father. Basil and I grew up in Ayrshire together in the 1980s when the unemployment rate was off the charts.

(And, by the way, you try having a name like Basil in Ayrshire in the 80s – proper Boy Named Sue job by Baz’s parents there.)

He left school at 16 with few qualifications and was looking at a life of – at best – dead-end jobs. He went to night school and got his Highers and then on to university and got a degree. He’s now a quantity surveyor with a huge, beautiful flat in the southside of Glasgow.

It’s a safe bet that he pays more tax than the English halfwit who was abusing his daughter. And I got to thinking about people like Basil and many of my friends like him.

People who made something of their lives out of the hardest of times, who educated themselves and, to all intents and purposes, moved up in the world but who still consider themselves fiercely working class. Which is just to say that they still have the decency to care for those who, for whatever reasons, perhaps haven’t done as well as they have in life.

And I remembered being friends with Basil through the 80s and early 90s, before his daughter was born, and watching all those elections, watching the entire country turn blue while Scotland stayed resolutely red as we got handed another Tory government no one voted for. I was thinking about this as I watched Osborne crying at Thatcher’s funeral and about how he and Cameron were happily setting about dismantling the NHS and the welfare state in ways that even the woman in the coffin they were gazing at wouldn’t have dreamed of.

And I thought of that terrible English bully accusing Sophie of being on benefits simply because she was Scottish and had a mobile phone.

And, finally, I thought… enough. I believe Scotland would legalise same-sex marriage. I believe it would reject Trident. I believe it would refuse to accept the victimisation of the poor, the ill and the weak.

And we have a way for all that to happen. For Scotland to have a parliament that looks a bit more like that love-filled chamber in New Zealand and less like the Bullingdon Club after a heavy night battering oiks. A way to ensure Scotland never again sees the sun rise on a day of Conservative rule.

Of course, I’ve been “down here” in England so long I’m practically a Pearly King so there’s no way for me to do much. But there is a way for most of you. You can all vote yes.