NICOLA Sturgeon became leader of the SNP at the party's conference a year ago. Her coronation dominated events in Perth, that and Alex Salmond's valedictory speech. It was an emotional affair.

The Nationalists were gathering two months after their defeat in the independence referendum. But they took pride in the campaign they'd just fought and hope from the closer-than-expected 55 per cent to 45 per cent result. There was delight at the huge surge in membership: 85,000 and rising at the time of the conference.

Fringe meetings were alive with wild conspiracies about the legitimacy of the referendum result. Delegates discussed the inevitable re-run and how to win it. When Ms Sturgeon told them she would govern wisely as First Minister, win the looming General Election and continue making the case for independence, it was the last of those pledges that raised the roof. Added to all the emotion that November weekend was a real sense of excitement.

The SNP has gone from strength to strength since then.

Ms Sturgeon not only kept her promise to win the election in Scotland, she did so with an astonishing landslide. Now established as First Minister, her popularity ratings are off the scale. Support for the SNP stands at 51 per cent, according to an eve-of-conference poll, putting it on course to return to power at Holyrood next May with an increased majority. As for party membership, it's now More than114,000. Yet the mood in Aberdeen this weekend is very different from last year. Realism and businesslike efficiency are the order of the day.

Part of that is down to the scale of the event, sprawling across the entire AECC venue. SNP chief executive Peter Murrell sent observers to the Tory conference in Manchester last month and believes he has put on a bigger show. Despite intense antipathy towards the BBC, staffers are happy to boast the corporation has sent 97 people to cover proceedings. As befits Westminster's third largest party, it looks and feels like a major UK conference.

But the messages repeated over and over from the vast stage reinforce the view that Ms Sturgeon's SNP is, for now, all about power and government.

The leader parked the issue of a second referendum in her opening speech, before most delegates had even arrived. It's now clear she will call one during the next parliament only if she really cannot avoid it. If you'd been left with the impression Scotland's reluctant exit from the EU would automatically trigger an independence vote, think again. Even in those circumstances, she will have to be 100 per cent confident of victory to stage a referendum. It "may well" provoke a surge in support for independence, she said, but put it no more strongly than that. A television reporter was issued with a giant toy elephant (the second referendum has become the elephant in the room, see?) to tell the story, which tells you all you need to know.

Instead the focus is on May's Holyrood election. The SNP will reprise 2011's successful campaign, based on the party's "team, record and vision". We've had self-congratulatory sessions with the Westminster and Scottish Government teams and plenty of defensive rhetoric about the party's record at Holyrood. The growing chorus of complaint about the state of Scotland's schools, hospitals and police force was "simply wrong" and "talking Scotland down," according to deputy leader Stewart Hosie. The First Minister will use her keynote conference speech today to set out her vision for another term in government.

Above all, though, the election means crushing Labour, which explains the SNP's obsession with a party that has been out of power for eight years in Scotland and five across the UK. Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour is "divided and in disarray", Ms Sturgeon said, in her fiercest attack yet since he was elected leader. Senior colleagues – and most of the speakers have been MSPs, MPs or candidates – have not missed an opportunity to repeat the charge.

Divided parties are losing parties, as the Nationalists understand clearly. It's a message to steer yet more voters away from Labour and towards the SNP. But might it also serve a second purpose? Many of those new SNP members are itching to feel the excitement of a second referendum campaign. This weekend, they have been warned.