Scottish Tories' leader Ruth Davidson has claimed the Conservatives championed the silent majority of No voters in the independence referendum as she announced plans to look at lowering taxes.

In a clear appeal to so-called "Tartan Tory" SNP voters, Ms Davidson yesterday said the swing to the left by Labour and the Nationalists during the independence campaign had created a "huge opportunity" for her party.

However, while she predicted the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon would be the most left-wing First Minister in Scotland's history, she did not rule out an attempted deal with the Nationalists at Westminster if the Tories fail to win a majority at the General Election.

For her party Ms Davidson said she wanted to send an entire Praetorian guard-worth of MPs to Parliament next year.

But she refused to put a figure on how well she thought her party would do.

The Scottish Conservatives were humiliated at the 2010 election following claims they could take up to 10 extra seats. In the end the party failed to gain any extra, and the only Tory MP elected was David Mundell, who won the Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency.

Appearing at a fringe event at the conference, Ms Davidson also diverted from the party line and stuck to one of her most controversial statements during the independence campaign, that the polls suggest the Tories will lose in 2015.

Despite the admission she received a standing ovation from the party faithful.

She said her commission would look at taxes already devolved to Scotland, including council tax and business rates.

Its conclusions would form part of the Tory manifesto for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, she said.

She insisted she intended to stick to her guns that 100 per cent of income tax should be devolved to Holyrood, despite opposition from Labour.

Tax cuts would appeal to large numbers of Scots who wanted "sensible centre ground policies", she suggested.

She then turned her fire on would-be SNP leader Ms Sturgeon.

"You can forget Donald (Dewar) and Henry (McLeish), Jack (McConnell) and Alex (Salmond). Nicola will take her party and her country leftwards," she said.

"She will be locking horns with Labour to try to demonstrate a sort of left-wing machismo, to elbow each other aside to lay claim to the collectivist crown and that gives us a huge opportunity."

She said the myth at the start of the campaign was the Tories were "toxic" in Scotland. She added: "We have blown that myth out of the water.

"The last two-and-a-half years have proved without a shadow of a doubt that far from being toxic, it was the Scottish Conservatives who spoke up and stood up for Scotland's silent majority."

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has insisted her party's decision to campaign jointly with the Conservatives in the independence debate was "the right thing to do."

The Scottish Labour leader said at one point questions had been asked about whether her party should work together with the Tories in the Better Together campaign group.

But she said she was ­"absolutely clear" taking part in the cross-party campaign had been the correct decision.

Ms Lamont told a BBC 1 ­Scotland documentary, How the Campaign Was Won, shown last night, that working together with the other pro-Union parties felt "like it was a logical and sensible thing to do".

She said: "When I first got elected as leader that was very much the question - would you campaign with other parties? Particularly, would you campaign with the Tories? And it was the right thing to do. I'm absolutely clear now it was the right thing to do."