The woman who won Scottish Independence?

The Better Together campaign seem to have shot themselves in the foot with their advert seemingly aimed at persuading undecided female voters to reject Scottish independence

It  has drawn derision  from across the political spectrum, with critics describing it as "sexist" and "patronising" and some even saying it has convinced them to vote yes.

The advert, broadcast by the pro-union Better Together campaign, was first launched on Tuesday. Called The Woman Who Made Up Her Mind, the short film depicts a working mother talking in her kitchen about the referendum. She says that her husband, Paul, "will not leave off about it", while there are "only so many hours in the day" to make a decision. She refers to Alex Salmond as "that guy off the telly", whose promises about currency and oil wealth seem to her to be "too good to be true", before concluding that she will vote no to independence on 18 September.

Launching the video , Better Together campaign director Blair McDougall said: 

"The key factor for people isn't the love of our country - as both Yes and No voters love Scotland. The key factor is the love of our families."

He added: "

The words spoken in the film are taken verbatim from conversations on doorsteps with undecided women voters and from the opinion of women in dozens of focus groups around the country.
"With so many unanswered questions, more and more of us are coming to the decision that it is just too big a risk to take with our kids' future."

It seems that it hasn't worked

Sandra Grieve, former convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, told the Guardian that the advert had finally convinced her to vote yes.

"It was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was a very clear no," said Grieve, who was a member of the Scottish Constitutional Convention which developed the framework for devolution, "but I've been increasingly uncomfortable with what I experience as a condescending smugness from Better Together."

The Blog BELLACALEDONIA sums it up wonderfully.

• a slightly knackered looking, busy working mother and wife who has spent the last year or so avoiding any form of political discussion with your husband / friend / relation / colleague / doctor / librarian / bus driver / neighbour / inner self (by living in a hole maybe?).
• a woman so aware of the importance of voting the right way that it has rendered her incapable of looking for any information about it – on the internet, in newspapers, pamphlets and leaflets. Hell, she’s certainly not going to listen to her partner’s view – and definitely not first thing in the morning. That would just be disgusting behaviour.
• a woman in her forties who has spent much (if not all) her adult life living in Scotland yet still unable to work out Alex Salmond’s name.
• a woman who is so mired in confusion about ‘uncertainty’ and ‘unanswered questions’ that she will decide over a quick cup of coffee (I don’t even think there was coffee in that cup) 3 minutes before going to work that everything she has sort-of and sort-of not picked up must be too good to be true and therefore rendered irrelevant.
• a woman who thinks that the idea of a country governing itself is such a bonkers idea it can’t possibly have been thought out properly (I mean, what other country governs itself? That’s just mad, that is)
• a woman who loves her children – and her children’s children’s children’s next door neighbour’s children – so much that she is not about to risk anything at all to even think about a different and / or better future for them. And she certainly wouldn’t bother herself to look for any facts about it. No way. That’s a gamble in itself. Putting on the internet might make her head explode or something. What would I know? I’m just a woman, too you know!

It would be highly ironic that  if there's a YES vote the actress employed  in this advert may go down in History as the woman who won Scottish Independence,