The National:

This week’s Behind the Headlines comes from political reporter Abbi Garton-Crosbie. To receive the newsletter direct to your inbox every week for free, click here.

FOR a speech that mentioned “change” a whopping 61 times, Anas Sarwar didn’t say much new at his party’s conference.

Today the Scottish Labour leader took to the stage at the SEC in Glasgow for over an hour, taking numerous pops at the SNP and Tories, in front of a fawning crowd of party members.

Squeezed in the back row, the heat became almost unbearable by the time Sarwar had made it halfway through the 27-page address that press officers had given out to journalists.

As someone who is used to frequenting the SEC for political conferences –the behemoth that was COP26 comes to mind – it was a bit underwhelming that delegates were sent in through a side door, with only the 500-seater Lomond Suite and adjoining small exhibition hall forming the heart of the event.

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There were plenty of energy companies and business lobbyists floating around. Overall though it was a relatively quiet afternoon, with Sarwar’s speech billed for 2pm the main event of the day.

At times it felt like you were roaming the bowels of the SEC, surrounded by repetitive grey hallways, with delegates pinned into a small section of the vast conference centre.

At first I lamented at the white wall in the press room we were forced to stare at – no livestream of the conference hall was provided and we were only given the media WiFi code a few hours in – but after sitting for an hour using Sarwar’s speech as a fan and trying to keep my eyes open, I was almost glad to see it again.

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And I wasn’t alone. A young Labour member wasn’t particularly inspired by what felt like a never-ending speech, as he told me afterwards, bemoaning that it felt “very Labour comms”.

He wasn’t wrong. If the goal was to say a lot but say nothing at the same time, then Sarwar achieved it.

One thing though: Walking out to Sia’s Unstoppable, with the lyrics "I’m invincible" ringing around the hall, jarred somewhat with his more cautious approach in the speech that the party should not be complacent ahead of the election.

But then again, he called on the crowd to cheer for the incoming Scottish secretary Ian Murray …

While insisting that he didn’t support independence or holding another referendum, Sarwar still pleaded for SNP supporters and Yessers to help hand Keir Starmer the keys to Downing Street, offering nothing in return.

Mixed messages as always from Scottish Labour then.