If the stress of the last few days was weighing on her mind she did not show it.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale smiled as she took to the stage for her speech to her party’s annual conference in Liverpool.

She had just heard an emotional endorsement of her planned reforms to the relationship between Labour and Scottish Labour from the women who introduced her, Johanna Baxter, a trade union official and member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee.

But now listening closely to her speech was the man at the centre of a row over attempts to scupper part of those proposals, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

He too was on the stage and he listened intently to every word that Ms Dugdale said, with one hand glued firmly to his chin.

Initially, the loudest round of applause she received came when she told the conference hall, in a rather businesslike manner, that she congratulated Mr Corbyn on his victory and that she looked forward to continuing to work with him.

She smiled again as she mentioned Labour’s recent council gain from the SNP.

But the biggest clap came as she said that Scotland did not need the uncertainty of another independence referendum.

Ms Dugdale was initially so taken aback by the reaction that she almost failed to pause to allow delegates to show their support for her call.

During her speech she also occasionally received a round of applause from Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson.

He has himself has had a famously difficult relationship with Mr Corbyn in recent weeks.

But the Labour leader kept his hand on his chin.

But at the end there was Mr Corbyn, and around half of the well-attended hall, on his feet clapping his Scottish counterpart.

At the start of her speech Ms Dugdale had paid her own tribute to Ms Baxter.

The two women had once spent a day knocking on doors campaigning, she said.

At the time Ms Baxter mentioned a sore leg but kept on working,

The next day she was diagnosed with a broken leg and put in a cast.

The message appeared to be: keep working and carry on.