LOCAL lass Nicola Sturgeon made a visit to her home town this week to put the case for a Yes vote to Irvine voters.

In an unlikely partnership with veteran ex-Labour firebrand Dennis Canavan, the Deputy First Minister presented her arguments for an independent Scotland to an audience of 200 - including her mother and father - at the Volunteer Rooms on Monday.

Ms Sturgeon urged voters to make a decision on Scotland’s future next September as much with the ‘head as the heart’.

Nicola Sturgeon first explained that many people in their hearts wanted to vote YES in next year’s Referendum on Scotland’s future, but she would be appealing ‘to the head not the heart’.

She said: “There are many reasons why Scotland can be independent and many reasons why Scotland should be independent.

“We can afford to build a better, fairer Scotland because – based on official figures – an independent Scotland would be the 8th wealthiest country in the world in terms of GDP per head.

“Without counting revenues from Scotland ’s oil, our economic performance matches that of the UK , but the oil is certainly an added bonus.

“Some say we’re subsidised. In 2011/12, the cost of all benefits in Scotland was £62 per head higher than in the UK as a whole; however, in that same year, Scots paid much more than that in additional tax.

“Even Mr Cameron has admitted that Scotland can afford independence.

“Scotland should be independent because that’s the normal state of affairs for any country.

“None of us would hand over our pay to a neighbour and ask the neighbour to decide how much we should spend and what we should spend it on.

“Independence is not unusual, it’s the norm – with over 200 independent countries in the world.” The Deputy First Minister said that for half of her lifetime, Scotland had been ruled by a government we didn’t vote for.

She added: “We see the welfare state and benefits system torn apart, illegal wars and billions wasted on Trident weapons of mass destruction – Scotland did not vote for these things.

“Next year Scotland will get the opportunity to vote yes and guarantee that we will always be ruled by a government of our choosing.” Dennis Canavan, who chairs Yes Scotland ’s advisory board said he was very much a convert to the idea of Scottish independence and said his conversion was based on his 26 years as a Westminster MP and eight years in the Scottish Parliament.

He said: “Westminster is totally out of touch with Scotland .

“The Scottish Parliament is not perfect, but it far more readily responds to the wishes, needs, aspirations and values of the Scottish people.

“I was born into a Labour family and grew up in the Labour Party.

“A hunger for social justice was at the heart of my beliefs, and for much of my political life I believed that a Labour Government would deliver that social justice.

“In 1979, the election choice was a caring, sharing society or a rat race; Scots chose a sharing society but the UK voted for a rat race and we got a Prime Minister who said ‘there is no such thing as society’ and created social and economic havoc.

“I waited for a Labour Government but we got Tony Blair and an end to student grants and the imposition of tuition fees for university students.

“It’s the Scottish Parliament which abolished tuition fees, gave us free personal care for the elderly, and free prescriptions – which the present Scottish Labour leader calls ‘a something for nothing’ society.

“The track record of the Scottish Parliament has shown that with its limited powers it has aimed high and achieved high.

“With the full powers of independence, it can give us an ethical foreign policy with no more illegal wars, an end to Trident nuclear weapons on our shores, better regulation of banks and bankers and a fairer, more progressive taxation system.

“It will also allow us to contribute to a better, fairer world.

“That’s why people will vote for a better, fairer Scotland and a better future for themselves and for the country.” With no speakers on the platform representing the Better Together argument, it was left to the audience to challenge the Yes campaign’s arguments with questions from the floor.

Topics included membership of NATO, the health service, and what currency Scotland would have on leaving the UK. On the latter, Sturgeon confirmed that we would remain in a Sterling zone, arguing it would have advantages for the close trading partnership’s Scotland has with the rest of the UK.

The threatened Magnum closure even managed to get a mention, although Ms Sturgeon deftly side-stepped that issue.