The fit between old and new in such a politically disciplined organisation as the SNP – accusations of a nationalist one-party state are heard a lot these days – will be one of the most keenly watched questions in Aberdeen.
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‘But let me make this clear: what matters just as much to me and to people across the country will be what it says about jobs and the economy, the safety of our communities, our hospitals and health centres, our schools, colleges and universities and our plans to use new power to tackle poverty and inequality’.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney has been set the formidable challenge of securing another nationalist majority in the Scottish Parliament by winning all 73 first-past-the-post seats.
Sturgeon said on Thursday that the party’s membership had more than quadrupled from 25,000 before last year’s referendum to 114,121 now.
In an exclusive interview with the Standard to mark the start of the biggest ever SNP conference, he said David Cameron had no solutions to problems facing the war-torn nation.
“There will, understandably, be significant interest in what our manifesto will say about independence”, Ms Sturgeon will tell the conference.
“We have to change more minds, we have to build the case and make it even stronger”.
Speaking in a vast hangar in front of a billowing Saltire, there were also repeated attacks on Jeremy Corbyn as Ms Sturgeon attempted to portray the SNP as to the Left of Labour.
“Labour is unreliable, unelectable and unable to stand up to the Tories”, Sturgeon said, adding that there was now “only one united opposition” in Westminster-the SNP.
She added: ” We must convince the people of this country that I will be the best First Minister, that we are the best team, and that we have the best policies and the best vision to lead Scotland confidently into the next decade”.
The fact that the SNP is now, with 55 MPs, Britain’s third party has prompted moves to get the timetable of the party conference season changed.
He also said he believes Mhairi Black could be future leader of the SNP: “She’s contributed hugely and she’s carried herself incredibly well”.
Mr Swinney said: “We must live within the resources that are available to us – we have had to wrestle with a reduction of expenditure in real terms of 10% since the 2010 general election”.
“If there is strong and consistent evidence that people have changed their minds and that independence has become the choice of a clear majority in this country, then we have no right to rule out a referendum and we won’t do that either”. I want to inspire people who voted No a year ago to vote SNP too.
The commitment is worth more than £3bn, Sturgeon told delegates. These include the conference hall having four times as many seats as it did a year ago (from 1,200 to 4,765), the exhibition space is three times the size, there are three times as many fringe meetings and a media centre six times the size “to accommodate over 500 members of the media”.
“For those who want Scotland to be independent, there is only one vote next year that makes sense, and that is a vote for the SNP”, she said. “In the Scottish election a year later, our support grew to just over 900,000 votes”, Sturgeon said.
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“It is time for the SNP government to be judged on their record of running our schools and hospitals; the truth is that in our schools the gap between the richest and the rest is growing, and our hospitals are struggling”, Labour’s spokesman on Scotland in the House of Commons, Ian Murray, said in an e-mailed statement.
