James millar

The man who is masterminding the campaign against Scottish independence has called for fewer egos in the movement on the run-in to the September 18 vote. Alastair Darling competing for attention and the Labour party careering around the country in a big red bus with the words Vote No plastered along the side like something even Ian Paisley at his height would have deemed over the top.

“But the No camp has made a better fist of it in the last month and that’s mainly down to Frank Roy.

“He’s got no ego, he just gets things done.”

Giving his one and only interview to the Sunday Post, the notoriously publicity-shy Roy appeared to have a dig at colleagues courting the limelight.

He said: “I am not a man for the

I spent most of my working life as a steel worker

pretty quickly. Can you imagine working in the Ravenscraig steelworks with hundreds of other working class men and women, and then trying to lord it over people or have an ego? It just wouldn’t work.”

There’s no better illustration of the professionalism lacking before Roy got involved than when Better Together invited a journalist to their HQ and let slip that internally the campaign was referred to as Project Fear. That’s a stick with which the SNP have beaten Better Together ever since.

However, he rejects the notion that the operation needed an overhaul and criticised those involved who were more interested in the internal dynamics of the campaign than winning the referendum.

He said: “I don’t accept that Better Together needed to be turned around. I joined as we were entering the final phase of the campaign.

“People in Westminster are only too happy to talk about this kind of thing that most Sunday Post readers won’t really care about. It’s self- serving rubbish that doesn’t really interest me.”

He’s similarly dismissive when it’s suggested that the likes of Labour big beasts Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy, who got more heavily involved in the Better Together campaign at the same time as him, should be commended for the difference they too have made.

He said: “I am less interested in what politicians have made a difference.

“The real story for me is the work our activists are doing all around the country. They aren’t making a big song and dance about things, but they put in the hard graft.

“There is too much focus on bigname politicians in the referendum and not enough on the ordinary people of Scotland.

“It’s the people just going about their daily business who will make the difference in this campaign, not politicians.”

Roy is battle-hardened after overseeing many Labour by-elections.

That involved him working to

I worked with other parties to save Ravenscraig

defeat the Tories and Lib Dems he now works alongside in Better Together headquarters.

He said: “Back in the ’ 80s I worked with people from other parties in the fight to save Ravenscraig. When an issue is that important then party political differences aren’t really that important.

“I disagree with Tories on nearly everything except this issue. Once the campaign is over I will get back to normal campaigning to kick the Tories out of Downing Street and the nationalists out of Bute House.”