Pride, poison & politics

Blair McDougall might have been on the winning side as leader of Better Together, but he found the experience 'deeply unpleasant', especially when someone spat in his face in front of his daughter

THE leader of the No campaign has said the independence referendum was "deeply unpleasant" as he revealed getting spat at in front of his daughter.

Despite being on the winning side, Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall said the IndyRef injected "poison" into politics and had been a "distraction" from real issues.

But he also conceded the official anti-independence campaign had been "joyless" in persuading Scots to back the Union. Wednesday is the 10-year anniversary of a historic referendum which saw voters reject independence by 55.3 per cent to 44.7 per cent.

McDougall, now the Labour MP for East Renfrewshire, led the official pro-UK campaign and spoke to the Record about his memories of 2014.

He was behind the successful strategy to hit the Yes side on the economy and currency, but his memories are bittersweet over the aggressive tactics of pro-indy supporters on the streets and online.

He said: "I have mixed thoughts. First of all, I have a lot of pride, where a lot of the world fell to populist, identity politics, Scotland was an outlier in that process, almost in world politics.

"But the pride is tinged with the feeling I had all the way through it, which I've had in the 10 years since, which was it was an enormous distraction from he very real problems Scotland has. That was always the feeling every day of the campaign.