Affirmative

Well that was fun!

I'm just back after helping Yes Scotland leaflet information on today's White Paper to commuters at Haymarket (we were handing out an even more condensed summary, the full thing is here if you're curious) I may not have mentioned this to everyone but after around a decade as a small "n" Scottish nationalist I threw my hat over the fence in October and became a card carrying member of the SNP. Seemed only right: I believe fervently in an idependent Scotland and the the referendum less than a year away, it seemed time to do something about that belief.

So anyway today was my first bit of political activism since... well pretty much since marching in favour of the (then) new and shiny devolved Scottish Parliament's (then) proposed repeal* of Section 28 back at University.

And it was fun.

22 of us turned up to don Saltire blue Yes Scotland branded hi-viz and hand out postcard sized summaries of the white paper, until we ran out and began handing out Yes newspapers... which also ran out pretty quick.

I spotted only three "Better Together" volunteers. They seemed to be having a much harder time finding welcome hands to take their papers.

One especially lovely moment for me was when a woman commuter stopped in front of me and peered intently at my blue vest for a second before taking the proffered paper with a big smile. "Sorry" she said "it's just someone tried to give me one of those Better Together ones earlier."

There were of course plenty of people passing who didn't want either a paper or a postcard, commuters after all are usually focussed on commuting... a couple even announced their intention to vote no as they passed me, but the responses I had were overwhelmingly either open-minded curiosity or genuine enthusiasm. Heart warming really.

40min into our hour of volunteering we'd all 22 run out of things to hand people, a shame really as the handful of No folk still seemed to have armfuls of their paper... but then as I said fewer people seemed interested in that.

I realise it's a completely unscientific sample and all, but nonetheless it felt today like Scotland is very seriously thinking about going it alone next year, and I for one couldn't be happier about that.

* which subesequently passed more than three years before Westminster took that shameful bit of hatred-enshrined-in-legislation off the rest of the UK's statutes. Just sayin'.