Down and dirty

There was much petty criticism and snippiness by the SNP of David Cameron's love-bombing speech of Scotland from 'Mt Olympus'.  Pursuing a scorched earth policy knowing that if they lose the vote narrowly, independence will be off the table for a generation and if they lose heavily, off the table for half a century, the SNP make all kind of vulgar, outrageous and personal accusations.  They give ammunition to all those who say that referendums are flawed constitutional devices where those who participate vote for reasons other than that under discussion.  The SNP know that if they play honourably, they will lose.
To say a Conservative prime minister is the democratic reason for breaking away is an insult to the Scots who, within living memory (albeit not my living memory), voted in such numbers as to give the Tories a majority north of the border.  Nationalists of all hues like to erase awkward history, such as demanding that the independence referendum not coincide with the 500th anniversary of the annihilation at Flodden by a depleted English army (Henry VIII with the main force in France) where the Scottish king and most of the Scottish nobility perished along with their army; but with the 700th commemoration of victory at Bannockburn (Scottish forces led by a man who had a rival murdered during a church service).  There is so little talk in the debate that during the Second World War, the SNP leadership of the time made little secret of their readiness to be collaborators should Germany have successfully mounted an invasion of Britain, much like the Croats who peeled off from Yugoslavia.  The SNP hierarchy were imprisoned for their treacherous outlook.
Calling the prime minister a coward but dressed up in the local dialect as 'fearty', hails from the same folksy tricks as practised by the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W Bush to advance flawed agendas.  Look at me, I'm one of you.  Just focus on me and my opponent and don't look in this or that direction.  We're the new Celtic Tiger (Ireland's economy implodes).  Forget that, we're the new Iceland (Iceland's economy implodes).  Iceland?  Not us - we're the new Denmark.  Be afraid, Danes, be very afraid.
And to say that the SNP would not politicise the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the manner that Cameron used the Olympic Stadium to emphasise Britishness - this from a party whose leader unfurled a Scottish saltire within seconds of Andy Murray winning Wimbledon slightly tarnishing the first British triumph in 77 years by instantly associating it with politics (Murray has studiously avoided getting involved in the independence debate and his oft-quoted 'any [football] team but England' to win the World Cup was in the context of light-hearted joshing with Tim Henman indulged in similar faux braggadocio).  Make no mistake, the SNP will miss no opportunity to associate themselves with the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
It's not that I don't have sympathy for an independent Scotland - the perverse decision to finance an obsolete irrelevance as a nuclear deterrent (we could help the USA more if the money was redirected to the rest of the military) and station it as Faslane is a powerful driver for the independence movement.  I just think that the country is stronger, economically, politically and culturally, as a single unit (as the Czechs and Slovaks, especially the latter, found out to their lament after the Velvet Divorce).  Moreover, the conduct of the SNP is disreputable and antagonises because it is designed to be antagonistic.