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ACCORDING to the demographics and pollsters, I’m a shoo-in for the “No” campaign.

I’m a woman, old and I live in one of the more affluent areas of Edinburgh.

Clearly Better Together assume I’m one of theirs as the only thing I’ve had from them was a single leaflet shoved through my door by a wee guy who told me he’d been paid to do it.

In contrast the Yes volunteers have been at my door, willing to engage in debate and discussion more often than double glazing salesmen.

Former Daily Record reporter Anna Smith reveals why she is voting No.

And as I told them I am on their side of the argument precisely BECAUSE I’m female, elderly and reasonably well off.

I abhor the male dominated ya boo, London centric Westminster politics which has become fatally corrupt and above all divorced from those they are supposed to represent.

I want my grandkids’ future to be in their own hands not in the sticky fingers of those MPs who seem to worry more about their own expenses than the lack of a living wage for too many of their constituents.

It is because I personally don’t have to choose between eating and heating that I am affronted we should have so many folk who must do precisely that.

I am not deluded nor naive.

I do not believe, should we vote yes, that overnight everything in our garden will be lovely.

There will be many thistles along the way. But we can surely, through our own efforts, make this a better, more equal place, where our considerable assets are shared fairly and not, as they are currently, disproportionately.

Our Government rewards the rich and penalises and demonises the poor.

See, according to the Tory boys, it’s not the bankers who brought the UK to its knees but those on invalidity benefits.

Gordon Brown has led a last minute passionate plea ahead of vote

Alex Salmond has urged Scots to 'seize the opportunity' and back Yes vote

And these, these are the people with whom the Labour Party is now sharing platforms.

Remind me too who gave Fred Goodwin his knighthood and who told the City that, “ I praise your unique innovative skills, your courage and your steadfastness....”

That great socialist G Brown that is who.

But fair play.

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The bankers have certainly used their “innovative skills” to bully and bludgeon Scotland into submission over the past few months - while continuing to pick up fines for misbehaviour and, like Deutche Bank, to lose billions.

We’re all doomed they tell us, the tumbleweed will swirl down Princes Street and Buchanan Street.

The black, black oil will not save us. It’ll soon all be gone.

Because I’m old I remember them telling me not a drop would be left by 1999.

Aye right.

But even if it does run out, we have infinitely more goodies including, above everything, our people.

Are we REALLY the only country on the entire planet which is too stupid, too poor and too incompetent to run our own affairs?

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I haven’t, you may noticed mentioned my pride in being Scottish or my patriotism - the last refuge of the scoundrel as someone once said.

I’ve never worn a kilt, wouldn’t even feed haggis to my dog, the bagpipes give me a headache and I don’t like Flower of Scotland.

But friends, at this particular moment in our history I don’t feel particularly proud.

How can I with food banks and the poor multiplying by the day and a Labour Party which says it will match the Tories’ cuts? Who can take pride in that?

Today we have a chance to change all that but also to stop the world and at last to get on, on our own term, in our own name - Scotland.