Wendy Alexander yesterday apologised to her own party at its Bournemouth conference for Labour's loss of power at the Holyrood election.

The new Scottish Labour leader's move surprised and disappointed some of those who had worked with Jack McConnell as he led Scottish Labour into the election.

It came as a shock to many at the UK party conference, where the mood is upbeat about being and staying in power, and a sharp reminder that things had gone wrong in Scotland. "As the new leader and on behalf of the whole Scottish party, I offer an apology for our defeat in last May's Scottish elections," she said. "For despite our many achievements in government in Scotland, too many felt we had lost touch."

However, Ms Alexander stepped back from voicing criticism of the party for losing touch with its principles or for failing to modernise properly. After The Herald yesterday reported a late draft of her speech saying "we will return to being a party of principle and energy," she cut the reference to returning.

Instead, she said that Scottish voters felt that Labour had lost sight of how to put its principles into practice. She also toned down a section of the planned speech that had criticised Scottish Labour for failing to modernise 10 years ago, and calling on it to "face up" to what English Labour realised under Tony Blair. She said instead that Scottish Labour should "learn the lessons from Labour in other parts of the UK about how to stay in touch with changing times and rising aspirations".

After a difficult first 10 days since being confirmed in the leadership, Labour moved to quash reports that she has already driven a recently-hired media spokesman out of his job. Brian Lironi, who had been recruited as political journalist, announced yesterday he is quitting, only a month after he started work. In a statement issued through Labour, he repeatedly denied he had clashes with Ms Alexander. "Through no-one's fault, my career change has not been successful and I have decided to move on," he said.

In the new leader's Scottish report to the Labour conference, she said Labour wants to seize back from the SNP the claim to be a party of hope and aspiration - "not simply by waiting or our opponents to fail, but by renewing our party again, the true national party of the people of Scotland."

Ms Alexander set out a strategy of tying the Scottish National Party into David Cameron's Conservative Party in England, claiming they are "allies" as both have an interest in talking up Scottish and English nationalism.

"They both have a lot in common," she said. "The politics of both the Tories and the Nationalists are the politics of division, the politics of envy, the politics of I'm all right, who cares about you?'. Both are putting their own parties' priorities before the peoples' priorities, and the SNP and the Tories have one final thing in common - they know that any Labour losses in Scotland at the General Election would suit both their agendas."

This contrasts with Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister in Wales, who explained to the Bournemouth conference that he had gone into a coalition with Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, in order to keep Tories out of power in Cardiff.