ED Miliband will today insist that, just as Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s faced the need to instigate radical change, so too today Britain needs a "new economic settlement" – and he is the man to deliver it.

His keynote address to the Scottish Labour Party conference in Inverness comes as a poll shows just one in four people feel he is ready to become prime minister.

It also comes amid resentment among some Scottish Labour MPs that Johann Lamont has sought to "bounce" the party into supporting devolving all income tax to Holyrood.

One disgruntled MP even suggested the Scottish Labour leader tried to keep Mr Miliband in the dark

about her intentions. However, a senior Labour source at Holyrood last night strenuously denied such claims, insisting: "The devolution commission's report is interim and we're at the start of a consultation; no-one is being bounced into anything."

He made clear Mr Miliband was indeed kept informed and added: "Having a fight between Holyrood and Westminster on this is just plain daft."

In his keynote address, the Labour leader will refer to how the past 10 days have been dominated by memories of Baroness Thatcher and the 1980s but will stress "how much pain the Tory governments of that time caused to communities in Scotland and the whole of the United Kingdom".

Yet while Lady Thatcher created division, he will argue his policies seek to unite people under the party's One Nation message.

"Back in the 1970s, it was clear the country needed a new way of doing things – a new settlement – and so too today," Mr Miliband will argue.

He will also attack the "narrow Nationalism" of the SNP, saying while Labour puts forward a plan for the UK's economic future, Alex Salmond spends his time drawing a line through the country.

"It's the same divisive politics that we've seen from the Conservatives, just for a different end."

The Labour leader will also challenge the First Minister's assertion that Lady Thatcher helped deliver a Scottish parliament.

Meanwhile, defence spokesman Jim Murphy will tell delegates the SNP Government is guilty of "most brazen breach yet" of the Military Covenant by overlooking some Scottish armed forces personnel, who, he insists, will not, as things stand, be able to vote in next year's independence referendum.