Ten years since the independence referendum. So what do I remember? Watching Gordon Brown in Kilmarnock doing one of his last-minute, save-the-Union speeches. Joining a Yes march on a wet and windy day in Glasgow and getting tangled up in a big soggy saltire (I know a metaphor when I see one). Voting No and noticing a dead black cat by the side of the road on the way back from the polling station (I know a bad omen when I see one). But ten years? Hard to believe.

Inevitably, the anniversary is making some people feel all nostalgic, and thoughtful, and regretful, and other emotions. There’s also going to be a ten-years-on rally in George Square just ahead of the anniversary itself and the poster for it shows a little girl in a tutu and angel wings, presumably contemplating a future where Scots like her can be free at last. The poster reads “the dream will never die” and is a pretty good example of why Yes lost ten years ago and is unlikely to win again any time soon.

The problem is the mawkishness of it, the over-sentimentality, the appeal to the heart rather than the brain, a tactic that was always going to win over some Scots and repel others. Emotions play a part in politics obviously, a big part, and fear and concern influenced the decision of some No voters, of course they did. But it seems to me the problem often with the Yes........

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