United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019
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  United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019
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Author Topic: United Kingdom General Elections: December 12th, 2019  (Read 135634 times)
afleitch
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« Reply #1100 on: December 03, 2019, 04:53:01 PM »

Is this a last minute Labour surge or not?

No.



That's if the polls are right of course.
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vileplume
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« Reply #1101 on: December 03, 2019, 05:00:46 PM »
« Edited: December 03, 2019, 05:07:23 PM by vileplume »

Side question, but was wondering why in Liverpool Labour tends to have some of the highest margins in the country and Tories struggle to crack double digits.  I can see in some parts of Birmingham or London which are predominately non-white why this might happen or in university towns, but Liverpool is not especially young and it is fairly white or at least close to 90% white.  Any particular reason?

The Tories have an especially negative reputation in the Greater Liverpool region dating back to the Thatcher era when the city went into a significant period of accelerated decline and it was perceived that the government didn't care (government documents from the 80s have emerged in the last few years detailing a plan for the city's 'managed decline'). Given Liverpool's troubles it unsurprisingly lost a huge amount of population (the population approximately halved(!) between 1931 and 2001) with those demographics more likely to be sympathetic to the Tories being disproportionately likely to leave and move to somewhere like rural Cheshire (e.g. comfortably off, private sector manager types). I believe it is said that: 'there are Tory Scousers except none of them live in Liverpool!'.

Those who remained in Liverpool, a generally Labour demographic as is, near unanimously blamed the Conservative Party for ruining their city (not entirely fairly as there were other factors at work). This antipathy towards the Tories has filtered down the generations and remains very strong even though the city has recovered somewhat from its nadir. The movement of newly affluent Scousers to areas surrounding Liverpool since the 90s such as Crosby and the Wirral Peninsula has caused a significant weakening of the Tory position in these areas as the new residents bring their 'inherited' dislike of the Tories with them.

Another not-often discussed but nevertheless significant factor is that traditionally one of Conservative Party's best ways of getting their message across to the working/lower middle class is the Sun newspaper. However the Sun (referred to as the S*n by the Liverpool Echo and others) is reviled on Merseyside and has a derisory readership due to its false coverage of the Hillsborough disaster (96 Liverpool FC fans were crushed to death at an away match in Sheffield due to negligent police control) where it blamed the disaster on Liverpool fans and fabricated stories about their behaviour. Even 30 years aversion to the paper is still extremely strong effectively becoming ingrained in the regional psyche and consequently the Sun's target demographic in this region opt primarily for the left-leaning Mirror.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #1102 on: December 03, 2019, 05:05:32 PM »

I mean, the truth is that there has been a Labour surge (or perhaps more accurately, a slow but steady build) but that was matched by a comparable Tory gain. Whereas in 2017, Labour surged and the Tories held steady.

This would still mean serious losses for Labour if the polls are right, of course, but I do think there's a difference between being defeated 35-25 and being defeated 45-35. Going into the election there was a real risk of Labour losing key parts of it base and potentially facing another 1983-like defeat that would cripple it for a generation. Right now, if they do at least as well as the polls are predicting, they will remain a solid voting block and the clear face of the opposition. Once Corbyn is replaced, that can put them in a strong position to win in 2024.
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parochial boy
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« Reply #1103 on: December 03, 2019, 05:33:01 PM »

Honestly I'd love to see a Labour minority that needs Lib Dem support just to see the reaction of anomalocaris and other dimmer Corbynites. I wonder if it will be "You know, on reflection, I've never minded the Lib Dems all that much..." or "CLASS TRAITOR CORBYN WORKING WITH THE LIB DEMS!" Either way it will be hilarious.

Regarding Swindon, she is inevitable herself, but if the Lib Dems perform badly then I doubt she'll be leader for long. Personally, I think 20 seats or more she's fine, 15-20 she'll be ok in the short term but probably won't serve the whole parliament, under 15 she's finished.

Eh, what I will say is that I have lived in the UK for two periods in my life. For a year in Sheffield around the time that David Cameron came to power, and for a longer period in London - but with lots of travel to Hull and to various towns in the South Coast - around the time of the referendum.

I remember, not that long ago, walking down Bargate, which is the main shopping street in Southamption (not a rich place, but not an especially poor one in the grand scheme of things) at about 7 in the morning. In every single doorway on the road, there was a rough sleeper; which to me as a naïve little Swiss kid seemed like a shocking, almost unreal level of poverty so visibly, viscerally on display.

Anyway point being, the level of damage that the Tories have done to the UK's social fabric in the last 9 years is genuinely heartbraking to see from the outside - in terms of the utterly real, but utterly pointless human cost; of the lives ruined; of the hopes destroyed and the pesssimism that has settled over the country as a whole. And in that respect, looking at what such a radical a Tory government as the one that seems to be on the cusp of taking power would actually do, is absolutely terrifying in terms of the actual human consequences it would have. So in that respect, I would be delighted for the Lib Dems to prop up any Labour government; just because it would mean them no longer being in power. And what Britain as a society, as real people whose real lives have been made worse, and are going to continue being made worse, by this Conservative government, really needs is the Tories no longer being in power.
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Oryxslayer
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« Reply #1104 on: December 03, 2019, 05:41:07 PM »

Anyway, there was a debate between Scottish leaders tonight, and the reaction from those that did watch it was that Leonard really stepped in it and did Scottish Labour no favors.
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DaWN
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« Reply #1105 on: December 03, 2019, 05:43:39 PM »

Eh, what I will say is that I have lived in the UK for two periods in my life. For a year in Sheffield around the time that David Cameron came to power, and for a longer period in London - but with lots of travel to Hull and to various towns in the South Coast - around the time of the referendum.

I remember, not that long ago, walking down Bargate, which is the main shopping street in Southamption (not a rich place, but not an especially poor one in the grand scheme of things) at about 7 in the morning. In every single doorway on the road, there was a rough sleeper; which to me as a naïve little Swiss kid seemed like a shocking, almost unreal level of poverty so visibly, viscerally on display.

Anyway point being, the level of damage that the Tories have done to the UK's social fabric in the last 9 years is genuinely heartbraking to see from the outside - in terms of the utterly real, but utterly pointless human cost; of the lives ruined; of the hopes destroyed and the pesssimism that has settled over the country as a whole. And in that respect, looking at what such a radical a Tory government as the one that seems to be on the cusp of taking power would actually do, is absolutely terrifying in terms of the actual human consequences it would have. So in that respect, I would be delighted for the Lib Dems to prop up any Labour government; just because it would mean them no longer being in power. And what Britain as a society, as real people whose real lives have been made worse, and are going to continue being made worse, by this Conservative government, really needs is the Tories no longer being in power.

Of course, that is a thoroughly reasonable line to take and one I can hardly disagree with. I didn't mean people like you though, I was talking more about the unhinged nuts. Fwiw, from the opposite perspective of a Lib Dem supporter who hates Corbyn's Labour, I'd certainly support such an agreement.
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Cassius
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« Reply #1106 on: December 03, 2019, 05:51:39 PM »

It seems that, as I predicted, the election has polarised into a straight Labour-Tory fight with some modest intervention from the Liberals. The trajectory of the polls is actually pretty similar to 2017, bar the Lib Dems being stickier than last time round - it wasn’t until the final week of the campaign when the really scary polls (for a Tory) putting Labour and the Tories neck and neck started to come out, so I wouldn’t rule it out this time either, given that there’s still nine days for Johnson to screw up big time.

As to the above post, austerity is essentially dead as a policy outlook, given that it almost killed off the Tory government in 2017, and the Conservatives have now committed to increasing public expenditure (not to the same extent as Labour of course). The ‘Singapore-on-Thames’ dream of the Raab-Patel-Hannan wing of the party will never be implemented, not just because it won’t work, but also because any party that tried to implement such a program in the UK probably wouldn’t make it into triple digits seats wise at the next election.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #1107 on: December 03, 2019, 05:58:27 PM »

Is this a last minute Labour surge or not?

Well it isn't last minute yet - over a week to go still, and that's quite a length of time in a British campaign, as hard to comprehend as that often seems to be for Americans. There has been some clear movement towards Labour over the past couple of weeks, and for the most part the implied swing in the polls is also somewhat lower as well. Whether you can call that a 'surge' or not depends on how dramatic you like your language.

There was, incidentally, no last minute polling surge for Labour in 2017. A couple of polls hinted in what turned out to be the correct direction, but they were in a minority (a small minority) and were not believed. For the most part the polls were just wrong.
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Blair
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« Reply #1108 on: December 03, 2019, 06:06:37 PM »

I also can't help but feel the shortness of this campaign has compressed time in a weird way; the Prince Andrew news cycle alone clearly blocked off a significant chunk of the campaign, and the parties/campaigns have been so pushed with time- post votes were dropping last week!

I'm really thinking out loud; but I can't work out if the short campaign means we're going to see the result everyone predicted (Tory Maj between 30-60) because there was no time to change it, or are we going to see a weird bizarre result (Lab win & or Tories up to 400) because it was a short campaign where no-one knew what was going on, and one side failed to turn out or inspire their vote.

I've been completely wrong in both 2015 (predicted difference of 10 seats between Labour and Tories) and in 2017 (predicted healthy Tory majority) but this election I'm still completely baffled
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #1109 on: December 03, 2019, 06:12:35 PM »

Uncertainty is good for election watchers I suppose.
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Blair
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« Reply #1110 on: December 03, 2019, 06:14:25 PM »

Question to more experienced UK posters

Am I the only one who feels every election has this usual final two weeks feel like the spitting image sketch where Labour just shout 'nurses, teachers, nurses, teachers' and seem to drag out a large part of a Labour vote which clearly hates the leader, the party and everything we represent; there was much talk of how 2010 was saved by a defensive game ground game, 2015 had a late (and rather pathetic) surge around Miliband and 2017 saw UNITE fly a plan around the North telling voters to 'come home to Labour'

Maybe it's just a statement of how Labour does politics differently but I do feel a lot of Labour's campaigning is based around people who really should be voting Labour.
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #1111 on: December 03, 2019, 06:18:39 PM »

Not British, but with the exception of 2015 (which broke my heart, I'm a Miliband apologist, if they bring him back I'd be thrilled), Labour always seems to surge at the last second.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #1112 on: December 03, 2019, 07:35:20 PM »

Apparently the latest YouGov had the Tories "only" six points ahead before some "undecided" voters were reallocated - this may help explain reported jitters (both locally and at HQ) recently?
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urutzizu
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« Reply #1113 on: December 03, 2019, 07:49:48 PM »

Apparently the latest YouGov had the Tories "only" six points ahead before some "undecided" voters were reallocated - this may help explain reported jitters (both locally and at HQ) recently?

Not that I am disinclined to believe you - quite the opposite in fact - but where is this Information from?
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mileslunn
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« Reply #1114 on: December 03, 2019, 10:59:16 PM »

Probably barring a bigger polling error than we've ever seen (being from Canada, BC 2013 and Alberta 2012 come to mind of the size of the error needed), we can rule out a Labour majority.  Even a Labour plurality is extremely unlikely and would require both a strong shift and polling error or near perfect efficiency in Labour vote (FYI, in Canada where I live in New Brunswick, Tories lost by six points vote wise but one more seats than Liberals and if Quebec is excluded, Tories won by 7 points in recent Canadian election in popular vote yet were 11 seats behind Liberals) for that to happen.  That being said anything from landslide Tory majority (over 380 seats) to another hung parliament seems plausible.  Polls might have missed 2017 as they overcorrected for underestimating Tories in 2015 so if another overcorrection again, Tories may win by even bigger margin than polls suggest.  But here are some reasons I could see a miss in both directions.

Tories Overperform

-Brexit Party vote collapses to under 2% and since in Northern Labour leave seats their support is much higher, this collapse swings heavily to Tories allowing them to not just flip seats they lost by 10 points, but even some they lost by 20-25 points in 2017 so the number of Labour leave seats they flip much larger than anticipated.

- Brexit turnout was higher than most elections so many leave voters particularly in North who are habitual non-voters see this is another Brexit referendum and show up again and vote Tory.

- In London, too many mixed signals on who to vote for tactically, so Liberal Democrats and Labour split vote allowing Tories to slip up the middle in several constituencies they would have lost otherwise.

-In commuter belt, many heavily remain constituencies where Tories got over 50% in 2017 but Liberal Democrats are expected to be competitive in don't materialize as fear of Jeremy Corbyn government causes many wealthy Tory remainers who were planning to vote Liberal Democrat to swing back to Tories at last minute

Labour overperforms

- Tactical voting is much bigger than thought and Liberal Democrats are under 5% in most constituencies and double digit support is due to margins concentrated in constituencies where they are main party likely to beat Tories so thanks to tactical voting, Liberal Democrats knock off some Tories (Labour is in single digits in those or low teens so few votes thus few wasted) while in marginals where Labour is main competitor, they hold their ground.

- Labour leavers who were thinking of voting Tory swing back to Labour as final week shifts to other issues or Tories have a major blunder.

-  Corbyn is very unpopular amongst voters even Labour so in safe Tory constituencies, Labour implodes from high 20s to low 30s to teens or single digits while in ultra safe Labour seats drops from 70s and 80s down to 50s, sort of like 2010 since if you look at votes there, quite similar in marginals to 2017, but in safe Labour or Tory seats much lower, thus shifts happen mainly in either safe or no hope seats not where it matters.  Otherwise in constituencies where it doesn't matter, reluctant Labour supporters switch to Liberal Democrats, but in marginals many hold their nose and vote Labour. (We saw this in Canada recently, where Liberals did much better than topline numbers suggest as biggest drops were in either ones they won by big margins in 2015 or lost, not in close ones).

- Brexit Party vote holds up in North so like in 2015 (many of those seats UKIP + Tories exceeded Labour), vote splits allow Labour to hold seats they wouldn't have otherwise or for Labour leavers, their past hatred of Tories too strong so they can move to Brexit, but going Tory a bridge too far.

- Young vote surges due to new registration and polls fail to pick up surge (If 18-30 year olds voted at same rate 60+ did it would be a lot closer although Tories still slightly ahead, but 4-6 points, not 9-12 points).

At this point, I would say 80% chance of a Tory majority, although only 10% it exceeds 400 seats.  A 10% chance another hung parliament but only a few seats short, so another Tory-DUP alliance.  9% chance Tories win most seats, but unable to hold power and most likely Liberal Democrats hold balance of power, but slight chance Labour + SNP + PC + Greens get over 323 so form government.  1% chance Labour wins most seats but falls short of a majority.  0.1% Labour pulls off an upset majority.  So in sum about a 90% chance Boris remains PM, 5-10% chance a compromise Labour leader becomes PM and a 1% chance Jeremy Corbyn makes it into 10 Downing Street.
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cp
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« Reply #1115 on: December 04, 2019, 03:10:34 AM »

I also can't help but feel the shortness of this campaign has compressed time in a weird way; the Prince Andrew news cycle alone clearly blocked off a significant chunk of the campaign, and the parties/campaigns have been so pushed with time- post votes were dropping last week!

I'm really thinking out loud; but I can't work out if the short campaign means we're going to see the result everyone predicted (Tory Maj between 30-60) because there was no time to change it, or are we going to see a weird bizarre result (Lab win & or Tories up to 400) because it was a short campaign where no-one knew what was going on, and one side failed to turn out or inspire their vote.

I've been completely wrong in both 2015 (predicted difference of 10 seats between Labour and Tories) and in 2017 (predicted healthy Tory majority) but this election I'm still completely baffled

Totally agree. The time of year has had a palpable effect on the campaign, too. Local canvassers can't really operate for more than a couple of hours before needing a break from the cold (certain Canadian transplants excepted, of course).

I think part of the seeming ambiguity about Labour's rise this year is a function of the 2017 campaign being so long. Labour gained in the polls pretty steadily from day 1 through to the end; it wasn't a sudden 'surge'. However, because those gains took place over 7-9 weeks it was possible to build a narrative of acceleration or momentum. It was a matter of perception and context, not the raw numbers themselves.

This year, Labour has been gaining at pretty much exactly the same rate, but it doesn't look like a 'surge' because it hasn't been going on for very long and the Tories have also had a boost by poaching from the Brexit Party (which collapsed later in the campaign than UKIP did in 2017). Put another way, the Tories hit their peak later in 2019 than in 2017, while Labour has time yet to hit theirs.
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Blair
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« Reply #1116 on: December 04, 2019, 04:06:15 AM »

Yep; people forget that weeks before the 2017 elections we had local elections which saw Labour get hammered & the national vote share was something like Tories 40%, Labour 29%, Lib Dems 10%
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Beezer
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« Reply #1117 on: December 04, 2019, 04:17:33 AM »

It seems that, as I predicted, the election has polarised into a straight Labour-Tory fight with some modest intervention from the Liberals. The trajectory of the polls is actually pretty similar to 2017, bar the Lib Dems being stickier than last time round - it wasn’t until the final week of the campaign when the really scary polls (for a Tory) putting Labour and the Tories neck and neck started to come out, so I wouldn’t rule it out this time either, given that there’s still nine days for Johnson to screw up big time.

Looks to me like the final week was just a continuation of the previous trend, i.e. no tremendous Labour surge within the final couple of days. Moreover, as others have pointed out, the Tory lead at this point is slightly larger than what they had going into the final week two years ago.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election
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afleitch
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« Reply #1118 on: December 04, 2019, 05:08:16 AM »

2017 polls got the movement right. It got the turnout wrong and kept adjusting this in favour of the Tories.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #1119 on: December 04, 2019, 06:22:51 AM »

A strange little snippet from yesterday - the PM got a hostile response by some voters in Salisbury, but maybe the real question is why he was there (a generally safe Tory seat since forever) in the first place?
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KaiserDave
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« Reply #1120 on: December 04, 2019, 07:19:15 AM »

A strange little snippet from yesterday - the PM got a hostile response by some voters in Salisbury, but maybe the real question is why he was there (a generally safe Tory seat since forever) in the first place?
As an American I tend not to read into stuff like that, as I could see Trump getting booed in Kentucky if he went to the wrong place. But if in the U.K....
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EastAnglianLefty
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« Reply #1121 on: December 04, 2019, 07:26:22 AM »

TBF, Salisbury the town is a lot less strongly Conservative than Salisbury the constituency.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #1122 on: December 04, 2019, 07:33:06 AM »

Anecdote alert warning - there are now a few fairly reliable accounts of a few of the, utterly beloved by our media, LIFELONG LABOUR HEARTLAND ("red wall" in current parlance) voters who were going to make a HISTORIC EPOCHAL SWITCH to the Tories BECAUSE BORIS OVEN READY BREXIT getting cold feet at the last minute and actually sending their postal votes off with a cross for.......Labour. "I just couldn't do it" some have reportedly said Smiley

On this now almost hackneyed subject, the Graun has a typically awful - and cliche strewn - piece about Bishop Auckland. Written by somebody who popped up a few years ago with the then almost de rigeur line that LIFELONG LABOUR HEARTLAND voters were poised to switch to UKIP en masse for quite literally no other reason than Paul Nuttall (remember him?) having a scouse accent.

Equally unsurprisingly, they are one of those who get paid to grift about "towns".
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DaWN
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« Reply #1123 on: December 04, 2019, 08:00:42 AM »

Salisbury is a seat that I can't quite believe never went Lib Dem between 97 and 10. It feels like a seat that should have done, right? In any case, 'politican goes to x seat that shouldn't be competitive' very rarely means the seat actually is.
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CumbrianLefty
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« Reply #1124 on: December 04, 2019, 08:07:52 AM »

TBF, Salisbury the town is a lot less strongly Conservative than Salisbury the constituency.

I know, but still makes you wonder why he was there.
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