Time for real politics after vote wrangling

But critics said the public have had enough of the constitutional niceties and want to know what the independence debate means for the Scottish people.

The press rushed to decide whether Tory Prime Minister David Cameron or SNP First Minister Alex Salmond had come out on top in the constitutional wrangling.

The Telegraph said the PM had "outmanoeuvred" Mr Salmond by avoiding a second question on "devo-max" while the New Statesman said the SNP came out on top by pushing the vote back to 2014.

But radical think tank the Jimmy Reid foundation said they were missing the point.

Director Robin MacAlpine told the Morning Star his organisation remained neutral on the issue of independence but neither the nationalist Yes Scotland nor the unionist Better Together campaigns had offered much for the public to debate in any case.

The Scottish public wanted to hear whether independence would improve their lives, he said - not the intricacies of constitutional law.

"Debate doesn't mean noise; it doesn't mean a sequence of words - debate is a set of ideas that both sides can engage with."

"It has to be a debate about social outcomes and not technical processes," he said. "Please god, let this be the end of debates over technicalities.

"This appetiser was pretty pathetic. Now let's get onto the main course and hope it's more satisfying."

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations' Martin Sime said most people wanted more power short of independence but would not have the opportunity to express it.

And he pointed out that "two years of yes/no politics" would dominated the agenda "while savage welfare cuts affect the poorest people across Scotland."

"This is not a recipe for successful democracy," he said.

The agreement will also allow 16 and 17-year-old to vote in the referendum.