Nicola Sturgeon has announced the creation of a state-run energy company in an attempt to set the agenda in Scotland and head off the challenge from a resurgent Labour Party.

Scotland’s first minister also pleaded with her party to be patient in its quest for independence, telling SNP activists that they had to deliver progress at home first.

The Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, meanwhile, had a warning for her colleagues in London.

Ms Davidson issued a direct challenge to her party’s leaders by claiming that the Conservatives look too “old and white” to win in London and urged those in the capital to follow her lead and develop a clearly definable brand, different from that of the Tory party nationally.

Ms Sturgeon, delivering the