Nicola Sturgeon has challenged Scotland’s political leaders to make the Holyrood election campaign “a battle of ideas, not a battle of insults”.
The First Minister and SNP leader issued the call as she got her party’s bid to win a third successive term in power in the Scottish Parliament under way.
Voters north of the border will decide who will run the devolved parliament in Edinburgh in a ballot on May 5, with opinion polls putting the SNP on course to win another majority at Holyrood.
Within an hour of business finishing in the Parliament, Ms Sturgeon issued a rallying cry to SNP candidates.
She told them: “In this election the SNP is going to campaign harder than we have ever campaigned before.
“We seek to be the government of all of Scotland and that is why we will be out in force in every corner of our country.”
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The SNP leader claimed with Labour and the Conservatives “divided and in disarray”, the responsibility on her party to “provide positive ideas and a positive vision for Scotland’s future has never been greater.”
She insisted: “Scotland needs a government and a first minister that will resist Tory austerity and stand stronger for Scotland.”
She also argued that while Scotland has “outgrown negative campaigning”, some of the SNP’s opponents have not.
Ms Sturgeon said “fear-mongering and scare tactics” had been used against nationalists in both the referendum campaign in 2014 and last year’s general election.
“My challenge to the other parties today is over the next 42 days let us have a positive, constructive debate about Scotland’s future,” she said.
“Let us make this election a battle of ideas, not a battle of insults.”
With MSPs due to get control over income tax rates and bands north of the border, she said the “next Scottish Parliament will be more powerful than this one”.
Ms Sturgeon added: “The new tax powers being devolved to Scotland mean for the first time we go into a Scottish election deciding not just how we are going to spend money on our public services, but how we are going to raise money to pay for them.”
She stated: “May’s vote is, without doubt, the most important election since our parliament was re-established in 1999.
“I am absolutely relishing this campaign, I can not wait to put our case to the people of Scotland.”
The election is also the first time Ms Sturgeon is standing for election to the post of first minister – a job she took 16 months ago after the resignation of Alex Salmond.
She said: “It’s been an immense privilege to do this job over the past 16 months but that privilege has made me all the more aware of just how much more there is to do in Scotland and how important it will be to me to have my own mandate as first minister.”
Speaking from a campaign street stall in Edinburgh, Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said this was the “most exciting and most important Scottish Parliament election that we have had to date”.
She said: “We’re straight out the Parliament on to the streets with a very simple message – if you want to choose to invest in public services and stop the Tory cuts, you have to vote Labour.
“We are the only party with a clear plan to end austerity and stop the cuts, not least to education, which is going to affect so many people’s futures in this country.
“I think it’s very clear that the big debate we are having in this election is over how to use the powers that the Parliament now has.
“I have stated very clearly how I think we can use the tax powers in particular to end austerity.
“This is something that the SNP have told us they have wanted for 10 years but yet after they have announced their tax plans their anti-austerity credentials have fallen apart.”
Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson insisted her party is “more than ready, to take on this over-mighty SNP government and provide the strong official opposition that Scotland needs”.
The Tories are hoping to overtake Labour to become the second largest party at Holyrood, with Ms Davidson stressing the country needs “strong opposition”.
She told activists in Edinburgh: “We need an opposition to stand up for Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom.
“Only two weeks ago, Nicola Sturgeon stood up at her party conference to declare that, if she is re-elected, the SNP will begin a new campaign for independence this summer.
“That’s despite her telling us all in 2014 that the referendum we went through was ‘once in a generation’. That pledge is now dead in the water.”
She also argued Scotland “needs a strong opposition to back jobs for this country” as she pledged the Tories would “make the case for fair and competitive taxation”.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie predicted his party would increase the number of MSPs it has at Holyrood from the five won in 2011.
He insisted his party had “punched well above their weight at Holyrood” and said: “Our dogged determination on the police has exposed unaccountable, industrial-scale stop-and-search.
“We were the first to talk about early education for two-year-olds, badgering SNP ministers until they agreed to our policy. And we have led the way on mental health – too often treated as the poor relation in our NHS.
“We are approaching this election with a big, bold, liberal offer and our positive and progressive proposals will have a transformational effect on society. Scotland needs more liberals at Holyrood and we will grow at this election.”