Trust me, pleads Sturgeon as she admits party is not perfect
NICOLA Sturgeon today will launch a presidential- style campaign for the next Holyrood election with an unprecedented personal pitch to voters.
The SNP leader will use her keynote speech at the party’s conference in Aberdeen to ask Scots to ‘trust me to always do the best for you, for your family and for your community’. With a clear nod to the scan- dal engulfing the SNP regarding MP Michelle Thomson’s property deals, Miss Sturgeon will admit her party i s not ‘perfect’.
And in what will be considered a swipe at her predecessor Alex Salmond, she will promise to govern with ‘humility’ if elected First Minister for the first time next May.
Today marks the final day of the three- day conference, which has been the largest in the party’s history following its remarkable membership surge. Miss Sturgeon will receive blanket TV coverage as she declares: ‘Over these next few months – as we prepare to seek reelection – I won’t pretend that we are perfect. Or that I am perfect. But I will promise this: we will always strive to be the best that we can be. And we will serve this country with imagination, courage, humility, and always to the very best of our abilities. Our manifesto will rise to the challenges of the future.’
But in an attempt to make the election a straight battle for First Minister between her and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale, she will concentrate on personalities, not policy differences, adding: ‘The choice at any election is about more than individual policies.
‘It’s about who you trust most – as your government and your First Minister – to provide the experience, the leadership, the ambition, the character and the unity of purpose to lead this country forward with confidence.
‘To the people of Scotland I ask this: trust us, trust me, to always do the best for you, for your family and for your community. And trust the SNP to always be stronger for Scotland.’
Aides to Miss Sturgeon admitted it was unusual for a politician to ‘make such a personal pitch’.
The SNP is widely expected to secure another landslide victory in May. The latest YouGov poll of 1,026 Scots
‘Making such a personal pitch’
adults, between October 9 and 13, found SNP support remains solid at 51 per cent of the constituency vote, and 45 per cent of the regional list vote.
Meanwhile, Scottish Labour has dropped one point to 21 per cent in the constituency vote, with the Tories just behind on 19 per cent.
The First Minister will also use her speech today to announce a £200million plan to create a network of health centres where pensioners will be able to get hip and knee replacements, or cataract operations.
With an ageing population putting pressure on existing hospitals, and an expected surge in such operations in the future, the centres will be based in Edinburgh, Clydebank, Dundee, Inverness and Aberdeen.
‘These operations make a real difference,’ she will say. ‘As more people live longer into old age, more and more of these operations will need to be done. If we don’t prepare for ten and 20 years ahead, our NHS will be overwhelmed by the demand. So we will act.’
The First Minister will go on to use her speech to warn against UK air strikes on Syria, saying: ‘What we should certainly not do in Syria is make matters even worse.’
David Cameron is keen for Britain to begin its own air strikes in Syria, joining allies in a US-led coalition against Islamic State, but Miss Sturgeon said: ‘The motivation for UK military action appears to be based on a need to do something, rather than any real consideration of whether the action pro-