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THE posh hotel is booked and the helicopter is standing by. And, no doubt, Alex Salmond's victory speech is already written as he prepares to fly into Edinburgh in triumph, just as he did four years ago.

But Alex and his chopper can still come a cropper - thanks to you. Last night there were 2million Scots still to decide how they will vote.

And they will not be impressed at being taken for granted by the breathtakingly arrogant SNP leader.

There is still time to stop the SNP winning a second, damaging term in power. There's all day, in fact. Today. So make the most of it.

We urge Scots to seize this chance to choose action on the big issues facing Scotland - creating jobs, improving schools, tackling violent crime and healing our NHS.

The party with the the best plans to do all that is Labour.

The SNP, by contrast, have failed on those same vital issues over the past four years.

And, for all Salmond's charisma and confidence, there is no reason to think another spell of Nationalist rule will be any different.

In fact, Scotland cannot afford what the SNP are really offering: five long years agonising and arguing about independence.

Because that is all that's really left for Salmond and the SNP. The oh-so-long, six week campaign has obscured the fact his government ran out of steam two years ago.

Labour have failed to hold them to account over their record. That was a bad mistake. It has given Salmond free reign to spend the campaign talking up his time in office.

But cut through the spin. Take a proper look. His record in government is poor. It is one of bad decisions, broken promises and failure.

Take the SNP's record on education. It must be marked "fail".

Salmond came to power promising to cut class sizes to 18 in the first three years of primary schools. He broke that pledge.

He promised to write off student debt. It was a blatant £2billion bribe - and it was airily jettisoned within weeks of him taking power.

The SNP have also cut the number of teachers by 3000, breaking yet another promise to voters.

They failed to commission new school buildings. The new curriculum they promised is in chaos and newly qualified teachers are leaving Scotland to get jobs.

Thousands of kids leave primary unable to read or write properly. After four years of SNP government, despite the best efforts of teachers, our schools are a shambles.

The health service, too, has been denied strong leadership. As angry patients and staff pointed out in Tuesday's TV debate, nurses' jobs are being axed, beds are being cut, services are being slashed.

And despite Salmond's pledge to "protect" NHS spending, the truth is the health service faces cuts.

He also failed to tackle one of the biggest problems facing Scotland - booze.

Despite universal support at Holyrood for action to tackle binge drinking and the illness, crime and grief it causes, the SNP failed to come up with effective measures that different parties could rally behind.

That pig-headed refusal to compromise, to rethink their flawed plans for a minimum price, shames Salmond, not his opponents.

It's not been their worst decision, though. Not by a long shot.

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed al-Megrahi should never have been freed. He was released on compassionate grounds by ministers who claimed the cancer sufferer had three months to live.

But nearly two years on, the worst mass murderer in British history remains alive and enjoying a life of luxury with his family in Libya.

The SNP's record on justice closer to home is not much better.

It is a disgrace that they ended short prison sentences of three months or less, in a move that hands 6000 offenders a year a "Get out of jail free" card.

It's doubly disgraceful that on the same day they blocked Labour's plan to lock up every thug convicted of carrying a blade.

In all, claim Labour, Salmond has broken more than 100 promises from his 2007 manifesto.

Where he has grudgingly admitted failure, he has blamed everyone but himself.

He's dismissed his broken promises as part and parcel of running a minority government.

Strange, then, how he regards that set-up as so successful he wishes to repeat the experience if he wins today. It is a recipe for a standstill Scotland.

Salmond has nothing to offer in the next five years, save a referendum on independence and a pledge to freeze the council tax. And the jury are still out on the council tax freeze.

Tax cuts are popular. That's why Salmond is desperately pushing them.

But the £1billion cost has not been properly funded. It has starved councils of cash and put jobs and services at risk. And that will only get worse.

Salmond says he'll stand up for Scotland. Rubbish.

In this campaign he has relied for support on David Cameron who, fearing a Labour victory, ordered his pals in the English Tory Press to back the SNP.

So don't expect Salmond to rock the boat at Westminster.

Salm can't afford to make life too uncomfortable for Cam. But that's not a big problem for him. Salmond once claimed Scots "didn't mind" Margaret Thatcher's economic

policies. He has been happy to rely on Tory votes to keep him in power for the past four years.

His policies - such as generous tax breaks for businessmen - have been tailored to suit Annabel Goldie.

The record of failure, the shortage of ambition and the ties with the Tories are uncomfortable truths SNP supporters must confront before they put an X next to

Salmond's name.

Diehard Nationalists, of course, will overlook anything when the greater goal of independence is dangled before them.

But the rest of us, the overwhelming majority, the 58 per cent who would vote "No" in

Salmond's referendum, should think carefully about his agenda.

A second Salmond term would be dominated by his promised independence referendum, which he has pencilled in for 2014 or 2015.

He is confident of a "Yes" vote and believes Scotland will be independent by 2018 at the latest.

The yardstick by which the SNP assess every policy is independence. It is not about justice or fairness.

In contrast, the only filter applied by Labour is fairness.

Iain Gray's pledge to create 250,000 jobs is ambitious but do-able. And, as Scotland faces

savage Con-Dem cuts, it is vital.

Labour's promise to end youth unemployment is also achievable. At a time of rising long term youth unemployment, it shows Labour are determined to prevent a repeat of the 1980s, when a generation of jobless Scots youngsters were chucked on the scrapheap.

Labour will reorganise the health service to improve care for the elderly. And their promise to halve cancer waiting times topped a list of voters' priorities in a BBC poll.

The party have promised to hire extra teachers to ensure youngsters leave primary school able to read and write.

Their vow to jail all those convicted of knife crime is backed by a petition signed by 30,000 Scots.

Those promises are at the heart of a programme which addresses Scotland's real problems.

We are proud to endorse them.