Independence is a “yellow brick road…which ends in deception, deceit and fantasy”, according to football commentating legend Archie Macpherson.
Appearing alongside Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling at the Marryat Hall in Dundee on Wednesday, the 77-year-old’s stirring speech provoked a strongly positive reaction from the crowd.
Mr Macpherson said he accepted the invitation to speak at the event out of “anger”.
“Our forebearers created the welfare state, the education system for which myself and others have hugely benefited,” he said.
“Within the United Kingdom that is the right and moral road, because I am as concerned about food banks in Liverpool as I am in Glasgow or Dundee.”
Commenting on the Yes campaign’s argument that the future of the NHS is threatened by a No vote, he added: “My wife and myself have benefited enormously from the NHS and it turns my stomach to see the SNP trying to make political capital out of this extraordinary piece of work.”
Mr Macpherson added: “It is a huge gamble and I am not prepared to take it.
“I value the things we have at the moment because we were together, and we should stay together.”
Former Scottish Labour chairman and Labour for Independence member Bob Thomson claimed that “following Monday’s debate drubbing” more and more Labour supporters were moving to Yes.
At the last count already more than 230,000 were Yes, he said.