I am of course immediately proved wrong 🙂 The Conference just remitted back a motion supporting the Scottish Government’s land reforms on the grounds they are too timid. There is life in this Party after all.

Am now blogging direct from the Conference Hall. We just had a fascinating insight into party management. The proposer of the motion on fracking, on behalf of Leith constituency, stated in her speech that their motion as submitted called for a complete ban on fracking, but that the text had been amended by the Standing Orders Committee to delete a ban and insert support for the Scottish Government’s temporary moratorium. She added that many constituencies then submitted amendments for a complete ban, but they were all rejected by the committee. Nonetheless, she stated we should support the bowdlerised motion to “show trust for the Scottish Government”.

A remit back was proposed on the grounds that the resolution was insufficiently radical. This was defeated 550 to 420. There could be no clearer illustration of the grip of the party leadership over the conference and the unswerving loyalty, even in plainly indefensible circumstances, of the bulk of the delegates.

I see that we are not to have a referendum in the next five years, but we are likely to have unconventional coal gas extraction or some other variant on fracking.

I thought I would give you the high and low points of the SNP Conference for me on Thursday. The high point was the debate on nuclear weapons, and the unanimous vote on show of cards for unilateral nuclear disarmament. That was all heartwarming enough. But what really made my day was watching at close quarters the facial expression of arch Blairite Andrew Rawnsley of the Observer during the debate. He went from incomprehension, as though everyone were speaking Gaelic, to a kind of rictus of disgust, and then his corded neck and cheek muscles started positively twitching in hatred. I feared for a moment it was apoplexy. Priceless, and well worth the cost of the rail ticket.

To say something nice about the media for a change, after that debate I saw Jon Snow helping his crew by carrying some of their very heavy equipment the considerable distance from the hall. Can’t imagine Gavin Esler, Laura Kuenssberg or any of the “stars” at the BBC doing that.

My next highlight was listening to Phillippa Whitford talking about the NHS. She radiates confidence and competence, and it is sadly unusual to hear a politician who really does know the subject on which they are talking.

I greatly enjoyed a chat over a Guinness with the new Ecuadorean Ambassador, Carlos Abad. We discussed the prospects for Scottish Independence and, both being diplomats by profession, agreed heartily with each other that the key to eventually achieving Independence is recognition by other states.

The SNP really could and should do more in promoting the cause to the wider international community. The group of broadly socialist countries of Latin America (Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua) is called ALBA, an acronym of the Spanish name of the group. We should definitely cooperate with ALBA!

Which brings me to the low points of the day. The Ambassador had never been to Scotland before, and he had come straight from Aberdeen airport to the conference centre. I was ashamed and desperate to convince him what a lovely country Scotland is. The AECC is the ugliest building in Scotland – genuinely world class in the ugly buildings league. It is even more horrible inside than out. Whoever designed a conference centre with no bar is exceeded in stupidity only by whoever decided to hold the SNP conference in a centre with no bar. There is a bar in the adjoining Holiday Inn, itself as drab and dispiriting as a cheaply built hotel can be, but the hotel bar is far too small to serve as a social hub for the conference. And as the conference centre is outside the city in the middle of nowhere, there are no nearby bars to pile into – the conference lacks any kind of social heart.

Equally annoying, the rooms available for fringe meetings are too small. I tried to attend fringe meetings on TTIP and on excessive executive pay, but simply could not get into either.

The fringe meeting on the timing of a second referendum was cancelled, without explanation. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Nicola Sturgeon has moved decisively in the last 48 hours to kick the next referendum further into the long grass. She was ten minutes ago on BBC Breakfast doing precisely that and positioning the SNP as a party of governance within the Union. Delegates here including me, have no opportunity at all to express our opinions on this. That is not a good feeling, and I suspect in the long term not good party management, however smart it may feel to the leadership at the moment.