While SNP leaders are restrained in celebrating their poll lead Scottish Political Correspondent Robbie Dinwoodie watches their body language that says so much more

THE SNP was predictably bullish yesterday about its prospects for the Scottish Parliament election a year from now, after taking a five-point lead over Labour in The Herald/System Three poll.

While the language remained restrained, with references to avoiding complacency and preparing for a marathon rather than a sprint - the body language attested to a surge of confidence coursing through the Nationalists.

Their ostensible purpose for calling a press conference yesterday, exactly a year before polling day for the Scottish Parliament election, was to launch a new leaflet and a new slogan, but these would scarcely have attracted much attention without their surge in our poll.

Apart from expressing their delight about the findings, the effect of a poll putting the SNP five points in the lead was to sharpen the press questions. There was an edge to the probing which indicated that the closer the SNP gets to a glimpse of power, the more intense will be the scrutiny.

At one point, constitutional spokesman George Reid brandished the manifesto from last May and the separate document costing that programme, and insisted that they would go into the same level of detail in the months leading up to next May.

SNP chief executive Michael Russell said: ''We hear a great deal from the other parties about what the Scottish Parliament cannot do or cannot be allowed to do.

''But last September led to the unleashing of energy and expectations will be high for our first Parliament for 300 years. We want that Parliament to be successful and forward-looking.

''Our aim is twofold - to seek to govern well, and to seek to give the people confidence so that they will want to go further.''

He was critical of moves by Labour, revealed yesterday in The Herald, to use the resources of the party in London to fund an onslaught on the SNP, with a designate official said to be employed to ''dig the dirt''.

He also said of the prospect of Labour trying to rebrand itself as a more distinctively Scottish Party in the months ahead: ''Branding without substance is pretty fatal most of the time. Look at the case of Michael Forsyth in his kilt attending film premieres. All it does is to invite ridicule.''

There were repeated probings on the specifics of the SNP's commitment to stage a referendum on independence during its first term of office if it won power, as well as tough questioning on whether the party would insist on this before entering any coalition.

The question was eventually resolved: were these absolute commitments? ''Yes,'' said SNP vice-convener for publicity Nicola Sturgeon.

She claimed: ''The lesson of the polls is that there is an enormous bank of goodwill towards the SNP, and we will get on with the job in the months ahead of delivering a positive policy programme for the Parliament which best meets their needs and aspirations.

''The indications are that Labour intend to fight the Scottish Parliament election with London resources and London-based politicians, and turn extremely negative in their campaigning, which would be a huge blunder for them.

''People want positive policies and a positive attitude towards this new Parliament, which is what Scotland's Party offer.''

The new SNP slogan, dubbing it Scotland's Party for Scotland's Parliament, brought a scathing reaction from Scottish Office Minister Brian Wilson, who is emerging as the Government's key front-line weapon against the Nationalists.

''It is arrogant of any political party to claim the exclusive mantle of Scotland,'' he said.

''The SNP remain a minority party, with just six Parliamentary seats. They do not speak for the great majority of Scotland and the great majority of Scots are opposed to their central aim of creating a separate state,'' he said.

Mr Wilson added: ''It is Labour which has delivered a Parliament for Scotland. We must now convince the Scottish electorate that Labour has the positive policies and commitments to make the Parliament work in the interest of the

people.

''We will never be so arrogant as to take the people's support for granted.''

Meanwhile, the Conservatives attacked the findings of the latest Herald poll as ''a very sad indictment by the Scottish people of Labour's first year in office''.

Scottish party chairman Raymond Robertson condemned Ministers for their ''lacklustre, don't listen, do-as-we-please performance'', with failings in education and health.

Referring to the voters, he said: ''This soon after the scale of our losses in the General Election, it is perhaps no more than we might expect that they are expressing their unhappiness and disenchantment with the Government by directing their protest votes to the SNP at this time, still a year out from the first Scottish Parliament

elections.''

Mr Robertson said that Scottish Office Ministers had raised and then dashed expectations they had raised to ''dizzy heights''. He added: ''Across the country voters are hurt, annoyed, and angry, and what we are seeing is their growing disillusionment reflected in the polling figures.''