Jeremy Corbyn rules out deal with SNP in hung parliament

Speaking before the manifesto launch, Ms Sturgeon said: “Central to our manifesto are three core pledges which underpin why it is so important for people across Scotland to get out and vote for the SNP next Thursday”.

And viewers were left to read between the lines.

Nicola Sturgeon has conceded that it may be more than two years before Scots vote on independence again as she launched a manifesto that made no mention of her preferred timetable for another vote on Scotland’s future.

She said the win would add weight to the SNP’s victory in the Scottish election previous year and a vote in the Scottish parliament giving her a fresh mandate to seek a new referendum.

Referring to Labour’s low level of popular support in Scotland and the continuing gap between the Tories and Labour at United Kingdom level, she said she believed May would win on 8 June.

The Scottish Labour Party recently suspended nine Labour councillors in Aberdeen after they did a deal with the Tories.

She cemented her position in 2016 by leading the Conservatives to second place in the Scottish Parliament election, winning a quarter of the 129 seats in the Edinburgh-based legislature.

Sturgeon confirmed that she wants a re-run of the SNP’s failed 2014 independence bid in late 2018 or early 2019, but said she could extend that timetable if there was not sufficient “clarity” about the consequences of Brexit, with Britain due to leave the European Union in March 2019.

It comes amid Scottish Tory hopes that they could win 12 seats north of the border in the General Election.

As polls showed the gap between the Conservatives and Labour narrowing, The Sunday Times reports that Tory strategists are returning to the core message of strength and stability as Britain negotiates Brexit. She has simultaneously described the UK Labour leader as weak on issues such as Brexit, while agreeing to a progressive alliance on pensions and pay.

Scotland voted against independence in 2014 in what was billed by the SNP as a once in a lifetime referendum.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has promised to put pressure on the next government to extend automatic enrolment (AE) to the self-employed and low paid.

Mr Carlaw said: “I don’t think it’s an overnight sweep, but I do think people are now much more questioning of the domestic record of the Scottish Government and are looking for people to actually be more upfront and successful in opposing them”.

“These cuts strike at the very heart of how we see ourselves as a nation and our shared ambition for the future”, Sturgeon said. It’s the SNP who told us the last referendum was a once in a lifetime, once in a generation opportunity.

She was pressed four more times on independence but refused to budge and gave the reporter “10 out of 10 for trying”.

Sturgeon’s original position on a second referendum was heavily influenced by her predecessor Alex Salmond, who argued a year ago that holding a fast referendum while the Brexit process was under way was essential.