Nicola Sturgeon’s speech in Glasgow highlights the similarities between the SNP and Ukip

Is Nicola Sturgeon trying to channel Nigel Farage? Scotland’s First Minister regaled the 3,000-strong crowd at the SNP’s spring conference today with some nuggets of policy, more demands for Ed Miliband and even a swipe at Margaret Thatcher. But she also positioned herself as part of a UK-wide movement seeking to ‘shake up’ Westminster in the name of ‘ordinary people’. You might add: the Ukip of the north.

SNP folk loathe being compared to Ukip. In fact, when I was writing this piece in a bar at the conference centre, I was berated by a group of Nats who spotted the headline and took me to task. But let’s face it: both are populist-nationalists who love to rail against the Westminster elite. Indeed, Sturgeon said she was sending a ‘message of friendship and solidarity’ to the ordinary people ‘across these islands who feel just as let down by that out of touch Westminster system’:

‘As long as Scotland remains part of the Westminster system, we will be your allies in seeking to shake up and reform that outdated and discredited system once and for all.