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Scottish Independence: SNP Spring Conference: Sturgeon speech; - Delegates, These are the essential differences between yes and no. And these are the reasons we must vote Yes. Friends, I am often asked to sum up why I believe that Scotland should be independent. The truth is there are many reasons. But when I boil it all down, it always comes back to my own life experience. I grew up in a working class family, in the west of Scotland, during the darkest days of Thatcherism. It wasn't inevitable that I would go to university, qualify as a lawyer and end up standing here before you as Deputy First Minister. I was lucky. I had parents who escaped the misery of unemployment that affected so many others during those years; parents who encouraged and believed in me and who worked hard to make sure I wanted for nothing. And, of course, I had the benefit of a free university education. And let me pause here just to say this: I will never, ever, in politics, be part of anything that robs future generations of the same access to university that I had. For me, that principle is personal. So I was lucky. But I was surrounded by people who weren't so lucky. Friends and classmates who were just as able as me and who worked just as hard but whose life circumstances conspired against them. I want to live in a country where it doesn't just come down to luck. I want to live in a country that uses its vast wealth to ensure that every child, regardless of their background, gets the chance to do what I did. The chance to follow their dreams and reach their full potential - whatever that might be. I know that voting yes won't achieve that by magic - we will have to work for it and earn it. We will have to make it happen. But I also know, from decades of experience, that voting No means we won't achieve it at all. And that, in a nutshell, is why I'll be voting Yes. Friends, One of my favourite songs is the beautiful 'Wild Mountainside' sung by Eddi Reader at the op...