Monthly Archives: March 2018

Tory Britain: Commuters refuse to give up disabled seats for blind man and guide dog

In Tory Britain, prejudice of all kinds has increased.

Against Jewish people.

Against Muslims.

Against people born outside the UK.

And, most of all, against the sick and disabled.

It’s no secret that the stress of rush-hour can bring out the worst in commuters. Amit Patel, 37, discovered this for himself last week, when he was refused a seat in the disabled section of a Southeastern train despite being blind and accompanied by guide dog Kika.

This isn’t the first time Patel was the subject of terrible treatment on the tube. In February, Kika’s GoPro captured the moment a commuter ordered him to move on an escalator despite travelling with his guide dog.

Unfortunately, priority seats are still treated as a suggestion as opposed to a requirement. Southeastern, for example, has Priority Seating cards and badges, but it only takes the refusal of one grumpy passenger to complicate the lives of people who truly need assistance.

Source: Blind man ‘reduced to tears’ as commuters refuse to give up disabled seats for him and his guide dog | indy100


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Sugar’s inflammatory tweet is one occasion when ‘You’re fired’ is NOT an appropriate response

Bad taste: Lord Sugar.

One of the tweets below describes Lord Sugar as a “pound shop Trump” – and in his “I’ll do what I like” attitude that seems an entirely appropriate criticism.

But while Trump has been accused of acting like a totalitarian dictator, Sugar has scandalously tried to portray one of our greatest democrats as a supporter of one.

Look at the state of this:

It’s not even a “jest”. It’s a nasty smear; an attempt to persuade the public that one of the UK’s strongest crusaders against racism of any kind, including anti-Semitism, was a supporter of the Holocaust.

Perhaps he thought it was a populist move, and he’d get a lot of support. If so, he thought wrong.

The most statesmanlike response came from Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell:

I have no way of knowing the inner workings of Lord Sugar’s mind, but the offending tweet has now been deleted (although not disowned). If it was because of this intervention, then at least he hasn’t completely taken leave of his senses.

But the damage had been done.

https://twitter.com/xugla/status/979828570297196545

The verdict: Lord Sugar’s tweet was an attempt to stir up hatred against Mr Corbyn – to worsen a crisis rather than help resolve it. He appears to have ‘form’ in this regard, having made hatefully sexist and racist comments in the past. So I say: Deleting the tweet is not enough.

We all deserve a full apology.


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Anti-Semitism furore tips into farce as Shawcroft quits NEC to be replaced by Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard: In the name of honesty, he wasn’t giving his vote to the author of Vox Political but to someone called Mike le Surf.

Left-wing Labour member Christine Shawcroft has been bullied off Labour’s National Executive Committee after she was forced to resign as head of the disputes panel in a row over an alleged holocaust denier.

The worst part of this story isn’t the fact that Ms Shawcroft will be replaced by comedian Eddie Izzard (on the NEC – not as chair of the disputes panel, unless anyone knows better).

No – it’s the possibility that the charges against Alan Bull, whose alleged anti-Semitism was questioned by Ms Shawcroft, may have been entirely fabricated.

Here‘s Mr Bull’s comment on the matter:

In June 2015 I had 5000 Facebook friends, many of whom enjoyed discussing a wide range of controversial subjects that didn’t appear in the mainstream media. My habit then, as now is as follows — friends send me posts they think are of interest. I repost mostly without comment to discover what other friends have to say about the article/MEM. When a friend comments, I cut and paste this-complete with their name, and paste above the article before reposting. This stimulates more comments and we all get a better understanding of the subject as a result. The most controversial article I posted privately to friends only, 2 years ago, was a documentary, with the controversial title, “Red cross confirm holocaust is a hoax”. The more accurate and considerably less shocking sub heading of this title was excluded by the screenshotter for maximum impact. As were ALL of the 46 comments, including a short exchange I had with a Jewish friend who commented, “Can I ask the intent of this article, are you denying the holocaust”? To which I replied, “Not at all, just posting for discussion and debate, as usual, best wishes, Alan”.

These comments were removed, to create the impression that I, in some way agreed with the article in an attempt to misrepresent my intention and have me suspended from the party.

Other articles claiming I was anti-Semitic included supporting a petition to reinstate Ken Livingstone and another article which was actually written by one of my Jewish friends!

Interesting to see that support for Ken Livingstone is now taken to be support for anti-Semitism, even though he was not found guilty of any such offence.

Mr Bull’s case is now irretrievably prejudiced due to the publicity it has received.

And here‘s another severely prejudiced case: Marianne Tellier, the former secretary of Labour’s Park and Arbourthourne branch, in Sheffield, has been suspended after tweeting this picture:

Her accusers are suggesting she tweeted it in support of the Holocaust – the slogan, of course, hangs over the gates of Auschwitz. The significance is that Iain Duncan Smith, former Work and Pensions Secretary, visited Auschwitz in 2010 and famously stated, “Work makes you free” in at least one speech afterwards.

Satirists took the phrase and applied it to a Job Centre Plus sign (Mr Duncan Smith, as Work and Pensions Secretary was responsible for Job Centres at the time), making a double point, that he was behaving like a Nazi in both word and deed, as thousands of people were dying due to savage benefit policies.

I can’t say for sure that this is why Ms Tellier used the image, but it’s certainly my reason for doing so.

What we’re seeing is the disruption of due process by unscrupulous people with a political agenda – to harm the Labour left.

Red Labour explains it well, below:

https://twitter.com/Redlabour2016/status/979751140354150400

The text in the attachments states:

As socialists, we have to uphold the principle of natural justice, based on due process. If we don’t, it makes it very difficult to talk about either democracy in the Labour Party or the importance of proper, legal protections, under the law in wider society.

We have heard a lot of talk, mostly from people not in the Labour Party, about ways to deal with the anti-semitism problem in the party. There is a sense that if only Jeremy, as leader, was tougher, the problem could be solved. Or, if we just could instantly expel people on the spot, the debate could move on.

However, that’s not the way it works in a democratic party, indeed any party which has any semblance of rights and engagement for its members. The Labour Party isn’t a private company, with a Donald Trump-style CEO in charge, pointing the finger and “sacking” people on the spot.

If it takes longer in these cases, that is because it is potentially life-changing (especially for a lifelong Labour activist) to be expelled from the Labour Party for anti-semitism. Indeed, it is important that all those accused are treatted fairly, and discretely – and with the principles of natural justice (including the ability to get a fair trial) because even being suspended can have a massive impact on your mental health.

What we can’t ever accept is summary justice. As Red Labour have maintained throughout, we acknowledge there are cases of anti-semitism in the party, and that it is a problem. We think it right for anyone to be expelled if they are found guilty, after detailed questioning and reviewing of the evidence, but if we accept the demand to expel people based on a swirl of hatred, we will struggle to call ourselves a democratic and socialist party in the future.

My own case has been undergoing trial by bigotry, of course. Someone in Labour’s NEC (or an officer reporting to it) gave a biased report about me to a Sunday Times newspaper reporter, and I was deluged with hatred on the social media – including messages from at least two Labour MPs, with a third being quoted discussing my case in other national newspapers. There is absolutely no chance that my case can ever have a fair hearing now.

Would you like to read the names of 39 Labour MPs and peers who demanded that Jeremy Corbyn enact summary, swirl-of-hatred justice against Christine Shawcroft, on the basis of her questioning the validity of the allegedly-doctored evidence against Alan Bull – even though he doesn’t have the authority? Here they are:

The letter states:

It is utterly wrong that somebody who defends a Labour candidate who has been suspended for Holocaust denial should be a member of Labour’s governing body.

This is highly offensive to the Jewish community and all those of us who wish to see the scourge of antisemitism eradicated.

We urge you to suspend Christine Shawcroft from the Labour Party immediately, thus ensuring she is removed from the NEC.

You pledged this week to be an ally in the fight against antisemitism. This action would represent an initial step in honouring that commitment.

Before going on, I should point out that, under the current, flawed system, all Labour members who are accused of anti-Semitism have their membership suspended before the evidence is considered – and that evidence is only considered by members of Labour’s governing body. We may therefore conclude that the signatories of this letter want everybody who is even accused of anti-Semitism to be dismissed without any opportunity to be defended by their NEC representatives, or even to defend themselves.

They want to make it possible to dismiss political opponents on the basis of false and malicious anti-Semitism charges, and that is not acceptable.

The Labour MPs and peers who want to pervert justice in this way are:

Siobhain McDonagh
Ian Austin
Luciana Berger
Chris Bryant
Ann Coffey
Mary Creagh
Stelly Creasy
Stephen Doughty
Louise Ellman
Jim Fitzpatrick
Dame Margaret Hodge
Mike Gapes
Lilian Greenwood
Mike Kane
Liz Kendall
Stephen Kinnock
Peter Kyle
Chris Leslie
Catherine McKinnell
Rachel Reeves
Jonathan Reynolds
Joan Ryan
Gavin Shuker
Ruth Smeeth
Angela Smith
Wes Streeting
Anna Turley
Chuka Umunna
Phil Wilson
John Woodcock
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top
Lord Beecham
Baroness Cohen of Pimlico
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Lord Harris of Haringey
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Lord Livermore
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale

I have stated that Mr Corbyn does not have the authority to sack anybody from Labour’s NEC. By resigning her position, Ms Shawcroft has rescued him from an impossible situation:

Of course, the only people to benefit from this are the Conservatives. Tory slimeball Sajid Javid was stoking the fires of disaffection on Twitter:

But we’ve all got the measure of him:

What we are witnessing here is an attack against justice, by the Labour MPs and peers named above, with the support of politicians from the Conservative Party (and no doubt many of the others, too).

It must not be allowed to succeed.


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‘Miracle’ as Yulia Skripal recovers from so-called ‘nerve agent’ poisoning. What next?

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia: Getting better? From nerve agent poisoning?

The Salisbury poisoning case is fast moving from tragedy to farce. If – when? – Sergei Skripal comes off the critical list, there will be serious questions to be answered – by the Conservative government of the United Kingdom.

And the government isn’t very good at answering questions. I mean, have you seen the presentation we made to other nations, to encourage them to impose sanctions on Russia?

It was a series of slides – and they weren’t very good.

Slide 1:

Slide 2:

Slide 3:

Slide 4:

Slide 5:

Right. Did anybody see a scrap of actual evidence – showing that Russia was responsible for… well, any of it – in that little lot? I didn’t.

Off-Guardian has these slides, coupled with a commentary that would be hilarious if it wasn’t accurate.

So much for the UK’s answers. The Russians, unfortunately, have lots more questions, and kindly put them on this short video:

Theresa May is reportedly considering her response. If I was Russian, I wouldn’t be holding my breath waiting.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, the public have been asking some serious questions of their own – and making some very pointed observations:

https://twitter.com/Wirral_In_It/status/979464799284285440

Last word must go to Hovellin’ Hermit, below, who hits the nail right on the head:


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Tory’s trumped-up abuse tweets may well be fake

Alice Terry.

Let’s all give a slow hand-clap to Conservative Alice Terry, who tried to jump on the anti-Corbyn bandwagon with claims of abuse – only for them to turn out to be fake.

At first, it all seemed genuine…

… although those of us with a nose for the facts would have smelled something fishy as our attention was drawn to it by the Guido Fawkes blog. Guido boss Paul Staines writes as ‘Steerpike’ in The Spectator, I’m told, and would therefore be responsible for the lies about me, published yesterday.

Tory vice-chairman and useful idiot Ben Bradley – the man who wanted to vasectomise the poor (and reporters), who wanted to turn water cannons onto “chavs”, and who libelled Jeremy Corbyn and had to make a grovelling and very public apology – lent his dubious endorsement to the story…

… and got the response he deserved:

See, it turns out that Ms Terry’s complaint may not be genuine.

Skwawkbox debunked it so let’s go to that site for clarification:

Ms Terry has helpfully provided screenshots of the abusive messages she has received. They appear to consist of direct messages, rather than tweets – and the accounts sending them smell more than a little… fishy.

Many have mysteriously and more or less simultaneously disappeared from Twitter after remaining long enough to send abusive messages:

Others seemed to share an odd telepathy, sending almost identical messages in spite of them being ‘DMs’ (private messages):

Those that appear to represent actual people show more signs of being obsessed with football, UKIP and, in some cases, Twitter-banned racists – and don’t seem to mention Jeremy Corbyn in their timeline

In spite of the ease of identifying these right-wing affiliations, curiously the Tories have attributed the abuse to ‘Corbyn supporters’.

Any genuinely abusive message is, of course, abhorrent. But – and Ms Terry may not, of course, have known – many of the messages look far more like a propaganda campaign by opportunistically created-then-removed ‘sockpuppet‘ accounts than any ‘abuse by Corbyn-supporters’.

If the offending tweets were Direct Messages, then they came from people who had not only followed Ms Terry – she must have followed them back. So they know each other – even the accounts that seem to have been created solely to abuse her. Doesn’t that seem dodgy?

And it seems the victim of these not-very-leftie abusers is not much of a victim either. Here’s the very lovely leftie Tweeter Aleesha (apologies for the strong language but you can understand why she temporarily lost control of her vocabulary:

Here’s the evidence:

Add it all up and it seems highly suspicious indeed.

Some have suggested that MPs should be a little more careful about who they support. This Writer wouldn’t put it past the MPs concerned – Labour MP Jess Phillips apologised prematurely to Ms Terry, and of course both Mr Bradley and Tory chair Brandon Lewis chipped in – to have their own reasons for trying to smear the left with a false and malicious accusation.

In fact, I wonder if any of them had a hand in it.


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More lies from right-wingers about Vox Political – because they are AFRAID

Misnomer: This particular magazine would be better-named The Expectorator – because it spits on the intelligence of its readers.

Right-wing rag The Spectator has named This Writer as number 20 in a list of 50 people or groups reckoned to be Labour Party anti-Semites – presumably because its editors are now terrified of the independent media’s reputation for factual accuracy.

What a shame the part of the article about me – by someone named only as “Steerpike” – has absolutely no factual accuracy of its own.

Here it is:

For those who have trouble reading images, it says: “Mike Sivier, author of the far-left Vox Political blog, has claimed there is a ‘conspiracy’ between Jews and those who defend them in the UK, saying: ‘We are being told that agents of a foreign country have infiltrated our institutions’. He was due to stand as a Labour candidate in council elections in 2017 but was suspended before the ballot took place.”

The link on the word “saying” takes you – not to any Vox Political article such as this one (on which the allegations were originally based), but to the false and malicious Campaign Against Antisemitism smear piece that I debunked immediately after it came out, almost a year ago. ‘Steerpike’ wouldn’t dream of letting you anywhere near my actual words because then you’d know his accusation is a lie.

Ironically, the article to which The Spectator indirectly alludes is headlined Accusation games: It’s all falling apart for the knee-jerk ‘anti-Semitism’ accusers – and now, it really is.

Let’s take the claims line by line.

“Mike Sivier, author of the far-left Vox Political blog, has claimed there is a ‘conspiracy’ between Jews and those who defend them in the UK.” Far-left? That’s a matter of opinion. I’d say I write from a centre-left viewpoint, but then I’d say The Spectator is written by people of a far-right bent. Agreed?

As for a “‘conspiracy’ between Jews and those who defend them in the UK”, take a look at my article and you’ll see that I was commenting on former Israeli embassy official Shai Masot’s attempt to conspire with members of UK political parties to achieve the wishes of the Israeli government. The example used in the Al-Jazeera documentary The Lobby was a plan to remove Alan Duncan, who has pro-Palestinian views, from his position as a Foreign Office minister. At one point in the documentary, Mr Masot even referred to what he was trying to do as a “conspiracy, yes?”

I make no mention of a “‘conspiracy’ between Jews [bolding mine] and those who defend them in the UK” because it was a conspiracy by a member of the Israeli government.

In the documentary, he mentions connections with other UK organisations including Labour Friends of Israel and its counterpart in the Conservative Party, and this led me to ask further – justified – questions about the role of such organisations in promoting the agenda of a foreign government.

“Saying: ‘We are being told that agents of a foreign country have infiltrated our institutions’.” ‘Steerpike’ let himself down here. “We are being told” means I wasn’t asserting it – I was merely reporting what had been said elsewhere. “Agents of a foreign country” cannot be taken to refer to Jews as a racial or ethnic group. And the infiltration of “our institutions” was demonstrated in the documentary.

“He was due to stand as a Labour candidate in council elections in 2017 but was suspended before the ballot took place.” The article fails to mention that I still stood as a candidate, and people still voted for me. The intention is for readers to believe heroic whistle blowers forced Labour to stop me from standing at all, which is a lie. It also fails to mention the fact that my membership was suspended because the Campaign Against Antisemitism (or one of its readers), having failed to win support against me from Welsh Labour, sent a copy of its lying article to Labour headquarters in London, where an officer triggered my suspension in a knee-jerk reaction, having failed to check if there was even a prima facie case to answer.

The CAA article was, it seems, written with the express intention of corruptly influencing the council election I was contesting, in flagrant breach of the Representation of the People Act, 1983. I’m still arguing about that with the police, who have been reluctant to understand the law in this regard.

So the Spectator reference to me is a pack of lies from beginning to end. Can anyone dare expect the rest of the article to be any better?

No.

I’m not familiar with all the incidents listed but, of those I do know, none are reported accurately and all are treated in the most hysterical, prejudicial way possible.

What are we to conclude?

‘Steerpike’, together with the editors and owners of The Spectator, are afraid.

They know the fake claims of anti-Semitism against the Labour left aren’t gaining any traction because independent media sites like Vox Political are debunking them by publishing the facts.

And they know that this means people will know they are lying.

So they repeat tired old smears against This Writer in a vain attempt to swing opinion in the other direction.

Fat chance.

All they have done is attract my attention – and, soon, the attention of my legal representative.


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More evidence emerges of Conservative MPs taking money from former Soviet states

Liam Fox.

It seems the Tories are more closely connected with Communism (or at least, formerly Communist states) than Labour.

What else are we to infer from the proliferation of allegations connecting the Conservatives with Russia and other former Soviet states including Azerbaijan and Ukraine?

I hope someone’s keeping track of all these claims; it will be interesting to see how many of them stick.

Allegations [have been made] about financial links between two Conservative MPs and former Soviet states sympathetic to Vladimir Putin aired during a foreign affairs select committee hearing.

The Conservative chair, Tom Tugendhat, called for an inquiry into the role of corrupt Russian money in the British economy in the wake of the poisoning of the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

During the evidence session, Oliver Bullough, a journalist and author of books on Russian corruption, pointed to the fact that the trade secretary [Liam Fox] had been paid £5,700 for the Azerbaijani translation rights for his book plus more than £3,500 to attend the launch.

He then added that [former culture secretary John] Whittingdale had accepted £3,000 to fly to Vienna. “I do not know how you spend £3,000 to fly to Vienna,” he said. The money, Bullough said, came from a Ukrainian oligarch’s foundation at the time he was battling extradition to the US on a FBI indictment.

Source: Senior Tory MPs accused of accepting money from former Soviet states | Politics | The Guardian


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Theresa May has cut 7,000 local police – while Tory election leaflet blames Labour

Mrs May really has a nerve.

Not only has she lied about police numbers, but her campaigners in the local government election are blaming the fall on the Labour Party.

The ‘Keep Havering Safe’ leaflet – now withdrawn – warned that a Labour victory would result in “a London crime wave with even less police”.

And whose fault would it be?

The Tories’ fault.

But they didn’t mention that!

Theresa May has secretly slashed 7,000 local cops she claimed were safe from Tory cuts.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly boasted of protecting the budgets of police forces.

But her Government’s own figures directly contradict her claim.

A total of 6,853 police officers and PCSOs were axed from local policing units between 2015 and 2017, according to a Labour analysis of Home Office figures.

Two thirds of forces suffered a fall in the number of uniformed officers and PCSOs in local policing despite Mrs May’s claims she hadn’t cut cops.

Source: Theresa May secretly slashes 7,000 local police despite claims they were safe from Tory cuts – Mirror Online


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Tory policies trigger biggest council tax rises in 14 years

Don’t be fooled – the huge council tax rise is all part of Conservative government policy to transfer public debt, held by the government, into private debt, owed by you.

Look at the report below: Government funding to councils has been halved since 2011. That’s not because of any necessity, but because the Conservatives don’t want central government to pay for vital services.

They want you to fund them – even if you can’t afford it.

They don’t care if you go into debt trying to pay for them.

In fact, that is precisely the point.

You go into debt – the government goes into surplus. And the very rich continue to do quite all right, thank you very much, due to cuts in taxes that affect them.

But you don’t get the services that local government should be able to deliver.

Remember: The loss of services is not because we, as a country, can’t afford them.

It is because the Conservative Party doesn’t want you to have them.

Households will be hit with the steepest council tax rise in 14 years from April, with the average household in England paying £81 more at a time when most local authorities are driving though big cuts to services.

The inflation-busting average 5.1% increase on band D properties in England pushes up the average bill to £1,671. Almost all councils that provide social care have opted to levy an average £30 charge to help meet the spiralling cost of adult care services, official figures show.

Council leaders warned that despite the steep rise, town halls would still have to reduce services. They said they had little choice but to ask residents to pay more as they struggled to balance the books since government funding had been halved since 2011.

Source: English households face biggest council tax rises in 14 years | Money | The Guardian


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‘Nerve agent’ smeared in large quantities on Skripal front door? Then how is Yulia getting better?

The Skripals’ front door: Threat to the public?

The latest intelligence – if you can call it that – about the alleged “nerve agent” used to attack Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury – is a little confusing.

Here‘s Russia Today:

British police say that the highest concentration of the nerve agent that came in contact with double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, was detected on the front door of his home in Salisbury.

“At this point in our investigation, we believe the Skripals first came into contact with the nerve agent from their front door,” Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said on Wednesday evening.

Haydon said that further police work would concentrate around the neighborhood where the Skripals, who remain in critical condition, live, but he insisted that “risk remains low” for ordinary inhabitants.

Hang on – people were moved out of the area where the Skripals were found, but their neighbours in the area with the highest concentration of the ‘nerve agent’ yet found have been in only low danger? That can’t be right, can it?

Has there been nothing stopping people – like the posties, perhaps – from touching this deadly door?

If not, was it really all that deadly?

And then there’s the following:

Hang on – investigators found large quantities of this alleged ‘nerve agent’ in the restaurant – enough to require the destruction of one table and the deep-cleaning of others – on the bench where the Skripals were found, and in the car.

The logic of what Mr Urban is saying is that there must have been much more on the door.

But he then suggests that this is a highly potent substance, capable of causing serious harm in the minutest form, absorbed very quickly and acting very quickly as well – and that the amounts involved were very small.

After that, he suggests that another place might have “even higher” concentrations of the substance.

It’s the logic of the yo-yo. High concentrations of this stuff have been found in the locations mentioned above, but it’s supposed to be deadly in tiny doses.

Following this logic, far more people should have been harmed – and they weren’t.

And now we learn that Yulia Skripal is recovering rapidly and is off the critical list:

The BBC understands from separate sources that Ms Skripal is conscious and talking.

However Mr Skripal remains in a critical but stable condition, Salisbury District Hospital said.

Doctors said Ms Skripal, “has responded well to treatment but continues to receive expert clinical care 24 hours a day”.

It’s all highly contradictory – if she had been exposed to a nerve agent in the kind of dosage that has been sugggested, then, realistically, Ms Skripal should be dead.

Like the rest of us, I await further information – but with scepticism.

And as for Russia’s involvement…


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