Nicola Sturgeon makes 'piggate' joke with accusation that David Cameron is 'pig-headed'

SNP delegates went wild as Scotland's First Minister made reference to last month's widely publicised allegations

Ms Sturgeon accused the Prime Minister of being 'pig-headed' in his approach to Scotland (Reuters)

The loudest applause in Nicola Sturgeon’s 50-minute speech to the SNP conference came when she referred to ‘piggate’ – last month’s widely-publicised allegations that David Cameron “inserted a private part of his anatomy” into a dead’s pig mouth during a university initiation ceremony.

SNP delegates went wild as she accused the Prime Minister of being “pig-headed” over his approach to Scotland since last year’s referendum.

Ms Sturgeon said the Government’s Scotland Bill, which proposes a raft of new powers to be devolved to the Scottish government, did “not even come close” to honouring the so-called “Vow” that Mr Cameron made on the morning after the independence referendum.

The Vow, which was a joint pledge by the Prime Minister, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg and designed by Gordon Brown, was offered to the Scottish people just two days before voters went to the polls to decide Scotland’s future last year.

It proposed maximum devolution for Scotland, but in her speech Ms Sturgeon turned on the Tory government for going back on its promise and pointed out that “even Gordon Brown, the architect of the vow, is crying betrayal”.

She said: “The Prime Minister's attitude to Scotland betrays the worst characteristics of his government – arrogant, patrician and out of touch; pig-headed some might say.

“Well, I have a message for the Prime Minister today. It's the same one I gave him in Bute House just a week after the General Election. Ignore Scotland at your peril; know that people are watching and listening and remember this: It is not you who will decide the future of Scotland, it will be the people of Scotland who decide the future of our country.”

Earlier this month Mr Brown revealed he had written to Mr Cameron to explain how the Vow of further powers for Holyrood could still be honoured.

He said only two changes were needed to the Scotland Bill, which is expected to return to the House of Commons in a fortnight, for the Vow to be honoured: giving Holyrood the right to top-up welfare benefits and an end to any suggestion that the UK Government could prevent it from doing so.

But Ms Sturgeon said Mr Brown should be “apologising for acting as guarantor to the Tories and telling the Scottish people to trust them on more powers.”

The lurid allegations of Mr Cameron’s university life were among a number of claims of debauchery during his university life laid out in a book by the former Tory chairman Lord Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott.

The book, titled Call Me Dave, claimed the Tory leader was a member of the exclusive Piers Gaveston Society while studying at Oxford University, which is said to have involved “bizarre rituals and sexual excess”.

Mr Cameron has denied the allegations but said he was "too busy running the country" to consider taking legal action against Lord Ashcroft.