DAVID CAMERON goes to Buckingham Palace today to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament and with that the General Election campaign officially gets going.

Nicola Sturgeon however, didn't wait for the UK political formalities and niceties to be conducted, delivering a promise to Scotland and a warning to Labour, as the SNP met for its Spring Conference in Glasgow.

She said her party would keep the Tories out of office and intensified the battle between the SNP and Labour over who can stop the Tories.

She said: "In the interest of total clarity, let me make this promise.

"If there is a hung parliament, SNP MPs will vote to stop a Tory government even getting off the ground."

She then put the ball in Labour's court on an anti Tory pact with the SNP.

She said: "I call on Labour to match that pledge, to make clear that if Labour and the SNP combined have more seats than the Tories, they will join forces with us in a vote of no confidence to lock David Cameron out of Downing Street.

"If Labour fails to make that commitment, the only conclusion people will draw is that Labour would rather have the Tories back in power than work with the SNP."

Ms Sturgeon spoke to a full house of 3000 at the SECC and announced the SNP membership had reached 102,143.

In her speech she made announcements on the living wage, National Minimum wage, education and violence against women.

She set a target of 500 firms signed up to pay the living wage of £7.80 an hour in the next 12 months and a commitment to back an increase in the minimum age to £8.70 by 2020.

She said the Educational Maintenance allowance would be extended to cover an additional 10,000 pupils and also to 12,000part time college students and she announced £20m of funding for projects to tackle domestic abuse.

The First Minister said to will be used to speed up the court process, support victims and fund programmes to rehabilitate offenders.

Labour dismissed Ms Sturgeon's warnings and said instead of beating the Tories a vote for the SNP would only help the Tories.

Scottish Labour leader, Jim Murphy said: "Despite all the cheering and backslapping the facts remain only Labour or the Tories can form the next UK government.

"Any seat taken from Labour by the SNP or anyone else simply helps David Cameron to say in power.

"Unlike the SNP, Labour has a real plan to tackle austerity and deliver real social justice, a plan that will see those that have most paying more in taxes to help those that have least. The SNP do not support our tax policies so there in a clear choice at the election. If you want change and you want a change of government then Labour is that change. The only way to get a Labour government is to vote Labour."

Deputy First Minister, John Swinney, addressed the SNP conference and said the three main Westminster parties would continue with an austerity agenda cutting public services.

He said the Tory cuts had targeted the poor, the vulnerable and the disabled.

He added: "That's the reality of the Tory cuts, but the Tories are not alone.

"Danny Alexander and the LibDems have signed off on every pound cut and every penny squeezed from the poor.

"And the Labour Party have cheered them on. They walked hand in hand with the Tories through the Lobbies of the House of Commons to back those cuts.

"Ed Balls even said there was nothing in the Tories budget he would change.

"The Tories claim "We are all in this together. Well the Liberals and the Labour Party certainly are. They are up to their oxters in Tory cuts."