THIS Glaswegian learned early to stir it up only when utterly convinced that there were no nutters in the company.

Arguments could quickly turn nasty, but adopting a three wise monkeys pose dodged many a rammy.

Nothing has changed today, especially when debating the Weegie hat-trick of hate that is religion, football and politics.

Tenement tradition dictated you were either church or chapel and Celtic or Rangers, but blind faith also united the working classes in their unquestioning loyalty to the Labour Party.

An ethos of social justice and fairness, champions of the working class, lured Weegie support, while Labour's dominance of local government and the growth of council housing didn't hurt, either.

Trade unionism was also on the rise then, when bedtime stories for wee brothers and sisters started: "Once upon a time and a half…"

Well, that Labour Party - if it ever actually existed, since it has never won a majority of the popular vote in Scotland - is long extinct.

And too many Weegies are still being conned.

The City Chambers has been a Labour Party branch office since I was a boy, and where has that got Glasgow?

We're the sick man of Europe, with historic housing deprivation and the UK's lowest life expectancy.

At Westminster, four successive election defeats persuaded Tony Blair to embrace Thatcherism, and 13 years of Labour government upstaged even Maggie's bitter legacy.

Blair's illegal wars in the Middle East (where he's a peace envoy!) helped provoke the current global crisis, while at home his party left economic meltdown, uncontrolled immigration, and one of the most unequal societies in the world.

He and Gordon Brown started today's Tory process of NHS privatisation in England - with inevitable knock-on effects in Scotland - yet after all that, they still have the brass neck to tell us they know what's best for Scots.

Brown blames David Cameron's policies for the Yes campaign leading the polls, but fails to mention it's his own party's alienated supporters causing the surge.

The oh-so-complacent pro- unionists have panicked, suddenly and cynically dreaming up new powers with which to bribe us.

Where have they been hiding them? Would they be bo thering had No still been ahead? Do you believe they will deliver?

In Scotland last week, Ed Miliband seemed more concerned about lobbying for the 2015 UK general election, but that aside his message was identical: Vote Labour to stop the Tories.

WELL, Ed, in the unlikely event of Labour winning in 2015 (when I predict you will not be PM), how long before Downing Street's revolving door ejects your lot and readmits the Tories?

Scots CAN permanently stop the Tories, or at least the Westminster variety, by voting Yes next week and ending a two-horse race that has no winners in Scotland.

The referendum was Labour's chance to rekindle their socialist roots and promote a new vision for Scotland.

Instead - and has no one told Gordon Brown? - they are committed to continuing the Tories' austerity plans and a welfare cap that Scots Labour MPs supported.

Labour just don't get it, do they? Even their own members don't care for the likes of Miliband and Ed Balls and John Prescott coming up here to lecture us.

It's as offensive as Westminster MPs accepting a 10% pay rise as the country suffers pay cuts.

The Labour for Independence campaign has attracted such stalwarts as Sir Charles Gray, former leader of Strathclyde Regional Council, former Glasgow Lord Provost Alex Mosson, plus many Labour officials and former MPs including Dennis Canavan and Jim Sillars.

Their website proclaims: "We exist because the Labour hierarchy rejects Independence and is in bed with the Tories", while a Scottish Labour poll found 47% of their voters "thought an independent Scotland would be a fairer society".

Bitter Together's 24-point poll lead in 2013 has evaporated amid the continued dismantling of their brazen scare tactics.

The RMT, Scotland's largest rail union that also represents offshore workers, is backing independence.

Petroleum geophysicist Dr Christopher Cornford says underwater fracking could almost double the amount of recoverable oil and gas in the North Sea.

Professor Anton Muscatelli, principal of Glasgow University, is the latest academic to argue that a currency union with the UK is the most sensible option for both.

As for a nuclear-free Scotland being abandoned, that's another red herring.

Dame Mariot Leslie, recently retired UK permanent ambassador to NATO, says: "I am in no doubt the 28 other NATO allies would see it in their interests to welcome a democratic, non-nuclear, independent Scotland."

Edinburgh-born Dame Leslie adds: "Scotland's geography, economy, demography and politics are so distinctive that they are best served by their own sovereign government. I shall be voting yes."

The three wise monkeys could not disagree with that.