We're off - and the panel who are with Laura Kuenssberg in Aberdeen are giving their thoughts on this week's big stories.

The government's response to the cost-of-living crisis, rising energy prices and the wider economy has been chaotic, says Alistair Darling.

The former chancellor says the impact of the mini-budget on mortgage rates and government borrowing is self-inflicted.

Martin Pibworth of SSE says the UK has better security of energy supply than some of our European neighbours and says the weaponisation of gas by Vladimir Putin, and lower exports of French electricity, as well as the drought in Europe all feed through to affect energy prices. He says the UK has invested well in renewables and should do more.

SNP MP Joanna Cherry says this week's supreme court hearing is about politics not law as there is a majority in the Scottish Parliament in favour of independence. A two-day hearing starts on Tuesday.

Scotland’s first minister is Laura's first guest this morning.

She used a round of media interviews on Friday before the SNP’s conference opened in Aberdeen to confirm she had not yet spoken to Prime Minister Liz Truss more than a month after she took office.

And we’re also expecting to hear from her about her plan to hold a second independence referendum in almost exactly a year’s time.

We’ll be taking the programme live shortly - you can watch it by pressing the play button at the top of this page - and we'll bring you the key quotes and top news lines right here.

After the programme Laura Kuenssberg will sum up what we learned on today’s show - and we’ll also post clips from the interviews.

Rob Corp
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Image source, Getty Images

Douglas Henshall - who’s been speaking to Laura Kuenssberg for this week’s show - is probably best-known for playing DI Jimmy Perez in the BBC detective drama Shetland, which has gained a loyal following over its seven series.

But in July he announced he was leaving the show at the end of its current run saying he wanted to pursue other acting roles.

And now we know what one of those is - he will play a Scottish diplomat called James Melville in a new production at the Hampstead Theatre in London.

The play - Mary, by Rona Munro - is a political thriller set in 1567 during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots.

We’ll hear more from Henshall after 9am this morning.

Philip Sim
BBC Scotland political correspondent

This gathering has a much calmer feel to it than the Conservative conference last week.

In part, that’s because Nicola Sturgeon has such a strong and assured grip on her party; there will be no dissent voiced by grandees at fringe meetings or plots hatched at the bar.

It’s also because nobody is expecting any surprises, as Sturgeon has set out her independence strategy in full already.

She still wants to win over UK ministers to an agreed referendum in the “gold standard” style of the last vote in 2014.

But if they refuse, she has asked judges at the Supreme Court to rule on whether MSPs can set up the vote on their own. That case begins on Tuesday.

And if that falls flat, she plans to fight the next general election as a single-issue poll, targeting 50% of the vote in what she calls a “de facto referendum”.

These plans are set, but they are fraught with difficulty. The question for Sturgeon is whether she can deliver on them.

Calls to end the divisions within the Conservative Party are among a mixed collection of newspaper front pages this morning.

The Sunday Telegraph leads on a call for Tory MPs to get behind Prime Minister Liz Truss.

The paper says a No 10 source is warning that without the full backing of her party Truss will be succeeded by a coalition of the Labour Party and SNP.

The Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express go further, with former cabinet minister Michael Gove in the sights of Downing Street.

According to the papers, an insider branded Gove a“ sadist” who would let in a Labour government.

Other papers lead on the dramatic fire at the Kerch bridge, which links Crimea and Russia, yesterday.

The Observer deems it a “bitter blow” to Russian President Vladimir Putin, while the Sunday Times suggests that the devastating blaze will give Ukraine hope it can retake the peninsula which has been occupied by Moscow since 2014.

In Scotland the Sunday Herald leads with Deputy First Minister John Swinney who is expected to renew the Scottish government’s opposition to new nuclear power stations being built.

The National looks at the SNP launching its own broadcasting platform as the independence campaign "ramps up".

Scotland on Sunday says a poll suggests a majority of Scots think a 'de facto' referendum on one issue is 'wrong'.

Get more on the stories in today’s papers in our full review.

Rob Corp
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

With the party conference season drawing to a close - the SNP is the last major Westminster party to gather - MPs will be boarding trains and planes to get back to London for the resumption of the parliamentary term.

They meet against a backdrop of the continuing fallout from Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget on 23 September - just over two weeks ago - which saw the value of the pound initially drop, the Bank of England step in to settle the bond markets where government debt is traded, and mortgage lenders hike their interest rates on home loans - not to mention the government U-turning on abolishing the 45p top rate of tax.

All eyes will be on the Conservatives. Where will the next battle front be?

There are rumblings of discontent amongst the party's MPs over uprating benefits in line with inflation - which the government has so far refused to do.

Should ministers be warning Britons to limit their use of electricity after warnings - albeit in the worst-case scenario - that the UK could face power cuts this winter?

What about the NHS - already struggling to cope with demand for its services as experts warn that a bad flu season and a new Covid wave would hit it hard.

And is there a deal to be done with the EU by Prime Minister Liz Truss which would change post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland?

As for Labour - can it ride the wave of its poll lead and make its case to be in power - and how does it ensure its conference season message of green economic growth gets traction amid all the other pressing issues of the day?

No doubt these issues will play out over the next days and weeks.

While much of the chat in the bars and cafes around the Aberdeen Art Gallery, external will be focused on a second independence referendum and the UK Supreme Court, there are a number of huge issues beyond that.

Top of the agenda will be the cost of living crisis and how the new UK government is handling it - badly according to the SNP and others.

Energy security will also be key, with debate about whether Scotland could have a nationalised energy company under the devolved settlement. And of course the threat of blackouts.

Image source, Getty Images

Then there's health, with winter looming and some waiting times already at record levels this is a thorny issue for Nicola Sturgeon and her team.

Hundreds of people protested against gender recognition legislation proposed by the Scottish government last week and this has proved a divisive issue for the SNP.

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Image source, Reuters/PA Media

“Glastonbury for weirdos."

I'm afraid that as a fully paid-up political nerd myself there is an element of truth in that comic description of party conferences from a Labour Party insider.

Twenty years ago I went to my first "season" and was gobsmacked that so many of the clichés I'd grown up with seemed true.

At the Conservative Party conference there really were young men in pin-striped suits or tweeds, as well as women of a certain age wearing pearls.

At Labour there were harassed-looking sharply dressed special advisers - but also plenty of placards and CND badges.

Lib Dem activists really did wear sandals and a "Glee club" was the hotly anticipated event of the week.

Party conferences are a display of our political tribes like no other and when things go right, they can create a sense of common purpose for the activists who knock on doors and deliver leaflets.

• Read Laura’s full column here

Image source, Reuters

As we’ve been saying - Scottish National Party leader and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is on the show, and one of the issues facing her government right now is the legalities of holding another referendum on Scottish independence next October.

The last time Scotland voted on becoming independent in 2014, the UK government agreed with the Scottish government that a vote should be held.

The result of the 2014 vote was a 55:45 split in favour of remaining part of the UK. Since then successive UK governments have argued it is too soon since the last independence referendum for another one to be held.

They further argue that a referendum cannot legally take place because the Scotland Act, which set up the Scottish Parliament, says the Union is an issue that only Parliament at Westminster has power over.

The Scottish government says that a referendum would not make independence happen automatically and would only be “advisory”, similar to the EU referendum in 2016.

They argue that this means a new vote would not automatically affect the Union and should be allowed.

Because of this disagreement the Scottish government is going to the Supreme Court this week to argue that it doesn’t need London’s authority because the vote would not be legally binding and therefore isn’t an explicitly constitutional matter.

You can read more about the questions facing the Supreme Court here.

Image source, Getty Images/SSEplc

As ever, listening and giving their analysis to the main interviews on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg is the panel.

This week we’ll hear from Labour former Chancellor Alistair Darling, SNP MP for Edinburgh South West Joanna Cherry and Martin Pibworth, who is chief commercial officer for the Perth-based energy firm SSE.

Alistair Darling held various ministerial posts in Tony Blair’s Labour government before being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer when Gordon Brown became prime minister. He took on the role just before the 2008 financial crisis and oversaw measures to prevent the British banking system from collapsing.

In 2012 he became chairman of the Better Together campaign set up to campaign for a No vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

Joanna Cherry represents Edinburgh South West - a seat previously held by Alistair Darling - having been elected as the SNP MP in 2015.

She is senior advocate in the Scottish courts, and led the case at the Supreme Court against the UK government’s prorogation of Parliament in 2019.

Cherry is chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. She has clashed with a number of SNP colleagues at Westminster over transgender rights and the party's strategy for independence.

Martin Pibworth is chief commercial officer and executive director at SSE - the company previously known as Scottish and Southern Energy.

He was appointed to the firm’s board of directors in 2017 and is responsible for energy generation and supply.

SSE no longer sells power directly to households, having sold its retail business to OVO Energy to concentrate on generating electricity from gas-fuelled power stations as well as renewable energy such as wind power.

Rob Corp
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

Image source, Getty Images/Reuters/PA Media

Welcome to our live coverage of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg - the BBC’s flagship political interview programme.

This morning’s show comes from the Aberdeen Art Gallery, external as the Scottish National Party holds its conference in the city.

They gather ahead of a week in which the Scottish Government will put its case to the Supreme Court that a second independence referendum should be held next year - without the permission of the UK government which has continually refused to give Edinburgh the legal authority to hold a vote.

We’ll hear from SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon shortly after 9am.

As well as Scotland, the programme will be looking back at last week’s Conservative Party conference - described as a "showcase of dysfunction and division” by BBC political editor Chris Mason - with our guests Conservative MP and former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and current cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi.

With MPs returning to Westminster this week, can the Tories put the turmoil of the past month behind them and focus on getting the country through what is looking potentially like a difficult winter?

We’ll also be looking at the National Grid’s warning that the UK could face rolling three-hour power cuts in the worse-case scenario due to shortages of gas for power stations and concerns over electricity imports from continental Europe.

And we’ll also hear from the actor Douglas Henshall - who is stepping down from the role of DI Jimmy Perez in the long-running BBC crime drama Shetland - about his forthcoming return to the stage with the premiere of the historical thriller Mary at the Hampstead Theatre, external.

We’ll bring you the key news lines from the show, as well as analysis and reaction. You’ll also be able to watch the programme by clicking the play button at the top of the page.