Change of pace won’t make issue go away

Edinburgh, which she insisted is helping with “meeting the global challenges of our age”.

She blasted the UK Government for taking Holyrood ministers to the Supreme Court, after the Scottish Parliament refused to back the UK’s EU Withdrawal Bill and instead passed their own Brexit legislation.

“That is Westminster control,” Sturgeon said.

And she hailed independence as being the “opposite of Brexit”, offering Scotland the chance to have a “real partnership” with other countries across Europe and the world.

While much of her 50-minute long address focused on the big constitutional issues, Sturgeon also announced several new policies in her speech. These included:

Increased bursaries for trainee nurses of up to £10,000 by 2020.

An “advanced manufacturing fund” to help small businesses modernise and grow.

More money for charity Social Bite to tackle homelessness.

A new “fair work first” strategy of investment in skills and training and payment of the living wage.

And she slammed Prime Minister Theresa May, urging her to end the UK Government’s “hostile environment policy” towards immigrants.

Sturgeon said: “In the face of rising prejudice and intolerance across the world, I am proud that our party welcomes those who come here from other countries.

“To everyone who has chosen to make Scotland your home, no matter where you come from, let me say this again today – we value your contribution.

“Ours is a better country for having you here and we want you to stay.”

Sturgeon told the conference the NHS was the country’s “most precious public service”.

But she said recruitment was a “big challenge” which would get “even bigger as Brexit bites”.

Her longest standing ovation came when she promised to protect the NHS from any potential trade deal with the US. She said: “To those itching to open up our NHS as part of a trade deal with Donald Trump, let us be clear.

“If you go down that road, prepare for the political fight of your lives. We will never allow you to put Scotland’s NHS in danger.”

Sturgeon also mocked Labour leader Richard Leonard for the infighting engulfing the party.

She said: “I won’t waste too many words on Scottish Labour – except to say that ‘branch office’ now seems to be a gross exaggeration of their status.” THERE was an involuntary shudder of hesitation in the hall when the SNP leader used the words “perseverance and patience”, as delegates sensed the power being switched between tracks.

But it was a minor bump in the flight on an otherwise smooth passage, placing nationalism in a holding pattern above the nation’s destiny.

It was quite BY TORCUIL CRICHTON is the task of sustaining the party in power, on hope.

That left a large part of Sturgeon’s speech spent not just countering Jeremy Corbyn’s populist left appeal but reminding people the SNP success has rested not on imitating the Labour Party but in becoming the Labour Party in Scotland.

So there was a solidly, strong defence of the social democratic credentials of her Government, even if some rest on the gains made by the former Labour-Lib coalition and the tax varying powers of – don’t mention it – The Vow.

Sturgeon presented, as usual, a liberal, progressive view of the country she