26/01/2012 Hearts and Minds


26/01/2012

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Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up this week:

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Does the Shadow Secretary think the coalition's policies are bearing

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fruit in Northern Ireland? Can the UUP continue to reject the

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loving overtures from the DUP? And despite opposition in the Lords,

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will strong public support allow the Government to brush off the

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The Shadow Secretary of State is in town for a regular update and

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Vernon Coaker is with me for his first visit to the programme since

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his accession last autumn. It would seem in these days of

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devolution and the like that your job would be one of the most

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interesting. Since I have taken office I have gone out of my way to

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come to Northern Ireland to speak to people. There are still a lot of

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decisions that are made in London at about tax and spend and welfare.

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I want to be an informed voice for Northern Ireland in London, but I

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have to do that by coming here. Finance Minister has been painting

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a rosy picture of the Northern Ireland economy. We have good

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direct foreign investment and have not lost all the jobs people said

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we would lose and the public sector. Everything seems to be pretty good.

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There is a lot of grounds for hope. What would you change? Well, last

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year I went to a conference about the Northern Ireland tourist

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industry. Things were looking good, but we need to look at the issues

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that concern people because there will be some job losses, the

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welfare reform policies will take money from Northern Ireland. There

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are issues. So, Sammy Wilson seen the work through rose-tinted

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glasses? And not at all. He wants to paint a picture of Northern

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Ireland that is positive. Alongside that we have to raise issues about

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welfare, problems that face families with children with

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disabilities. We are seeing money taken our of capital. The coalition

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would say because of the financial situation at the Labour government

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landed us in, but what would you change? The overall strategy of the

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government is to cut too far and too quickly. There are issues and

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there are difficulties. One of the things we have set as a positive

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step forward is we could have a plan for jobs and growth. One of

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the ways of doing that is to have a temporary cut in VAT to bring

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investment projects, to have National Insurance holidays for

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small businesses and to do other things like creating schemes for

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the young unemployed. A lot of things can be done to help. The as

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well be done on a national level? Of course. The VAT rate is

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something set at Westminster. That is an example of the decisions

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taken in London that in pack Northern Ireland. Would you give

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Northern Ireland more? Certainly in Northern Ireland would have done

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better under the economic strategy had we been in government. We said

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the deficit is being reduced to quickly. The consequence of that is

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Northern Ireland will lose �4 billion over the next few years.

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But what you have given us? would have been a matter of looking

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at the box, but what I am saying is that clearly Northern Ireland would

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have done better under a Labour government. If you should win the

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election in 2015, you would increase the Northern Ireland block

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grant? When we get to 2015, during the run-up to the election, or we

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will need to look at what is happening. We do not know where we

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will be in three years' time. people say we are enduring the

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worst crisis for generations. Many would say it cannot get worse, so

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it it even now you are say you would have given Northern Ireland

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more money, surely you can say that in a few years you will give us

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more money? Be could get worse. Unemployment is rising, businesses

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are closing. It could get worse. is easy to sit in Opposition and

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say, we will give you more. What we have done is to say there are

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choices the government makes that impacts the UK and Northern Ireland

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economy. They make the choice to raise VAT and not tax the bankers

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in the way we would have done. Even in an austerity budget, you can

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make choices that are fair to everyone. Will the private sector

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proper job lost and the public sector? Well, the impact it is

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having to pretend that what the government is doing his a strategy

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for jobs and growth when clearly all we are seeing is a decline in

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growth, as we have seen in the UK... At but not so bad in Northern

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Ireland. Manufacturing output is growing up -- going up. There have

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been good figures in Northern Ireland and it is something to be

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pleased about. However, one in five young people are out of work.

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not the same in the UK? More or less. We need to do something to

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help the young people and that is where some of the difficulty arises

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with the government's welfare reforms. Given the Cup thats in

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Westminster, is the Executive going the right way? By the Assembly are

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trying to do is in that sense act as a shield, to do the best they

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can. My job is to be a voice for Northern Ireland to support them

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and protect the interests of Northern Ireland and its people.

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The secretary of state a win Patterson is concentrating on

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legacy issues, have to do with the past. What is your big idea?

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secretary of state was given a way forward when the Assembly said what

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they wanted him to do was to facilitate all party talks on try

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to find a way forward. They did not asking to find a solution, they

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asked him to facilitate talks which would allow... Are thought he asked

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them? Well, maybe, but they asked him to facilitate talks. He has

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written to them on a bilateral basis asking for individual talks.

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Do you have an idea? I would have facilitated all party talks and I

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would have looked to see what the role of the victims and survivors

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would have been in that process. you think it is possible to come up

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with the way that will satisfy all those conflicting interests? So in

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that fantastic progress made in the last few years in Northern Ireland.

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People many years ago may have said that progress would have been

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impossible. In the end, people look at difficult issues and they come

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to conclusions to find a way forward. It is possible, but it

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would be difficult. But you don't have a single big idea? The

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Secretary of State is talking about eight documentary archive. A I do

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not want to come up with a good idea and say, this is what you

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should do. It is a matter for the people of Northern Ireland to do

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that. What is important is the Secretary of State having been

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asked to facilitate talks, it I were him, I would be facilitating

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those talks. What of your party colleagues Peter Hain is in trouble

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with the Lord Chief Justice at the comments he made in his

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autobiography over the appointment of a senior judge. Do you think

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Peter Hain is in very deep water? What Peter Hain said is a matter

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for him. We all respect the independence of the judiciary and

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respect the work they do. Is he out of order? Well, Peter Hain...

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he out of order? He has made his comments. I don't know what

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happened, but I know the independence of the judiciary is an

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important matter of principle for us all and I have great confidence

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in it. And you don't want to get involved? I do not know what

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happens... You thought he was off his rocker! All I know is that the

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Northern Ireland judiciary is a proud part of the system and its

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independence must be maintained. Well, here we are. A couple of

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weeks away from St Valentine's Day and the air is already thick with

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the whoosh and thud of Cupid's arrows and the penning of anonymous

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sweet nothings. Peter Robinson has taken a blunter, more public

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approach, sending his card courtesy of a television interview:

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"Oh Tom, recall our former glories. So let's have a snog, now you've

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dumped the Tories." OK, it's not up there with Byron

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and Shakespeare, but the sentiment is the same. And he's taken the

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precaution of sending it in a Leap Year, which is a good thing, since

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it usually takes the UUP about four years to make up its mind about any

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invitation. The problem with the UUP is that it

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is very difficult to keep up with the plot. First it was a fling with

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the Conservatives. Then an up- market menage a trois with the

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Conservatives and DUP at Hatfield House, with a bit of Orange slap

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and tickle below stairs. Then back to the Conservatives, before the

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suggestion of a wife-swapping session with the SDLP on the

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Opposition benches. Then "yes" to the Conservatives,

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followed by a final "no" and now a raising of the skirt and fluttering

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of the eyelashes at the DUP. It's a wonderfully bizarre soap-opera with

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props tumbling and key members of the cast struggling to remember

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with whom they are having their latest affair.

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Meanwhile the local Conservatives are doing their best to convince us

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that they are relevant again. Not an easy thing when you have no

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elected representatives and less obvious appeal than the Hunchback

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Of Notre Dame at a swingers party. Having been here for 23 years, they

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have become like one of those 'noticed only from the corner of

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your eye' trolley patients you don't quite see in Casualty or

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Holby. No matter how many times the crash team is called, or how many

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volts are pumped into the body, you always know that a sheet will be

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pulled over the face as they are wheeled into the morgue against the

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background noise of a flat-lining heart detector.

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Apparently, they are re-launching themselves again in early spring as

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the 'Utterly Butterly, I Can't Believe It's Not The Same Old

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Conservative Party' Party, chock-a- block with UUP defectors who didn't

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manage to get selected or elected under their old colours.

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You have to admire their chutzpah. Weeks ago Central Office was

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planning to disband them altogether and fold them into a new

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organisation in which they would be swamped by the UUP. Yet they now

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have to pretend that a solo run was what they wanted all along.

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Maybe David Trimble was right. If Tom Elliott had done a Mr Del Monte

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and said yes, then the NI Conservatives would have vanished

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overnight and not been missed until a sacrificial candidate was

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required for West Belfast or Foyle. Mind you, being accused of

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political stupidity by David Trimble is a bit like being accused

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of pomposity by David Ford. Anyway, both the UUP and the newly

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self-styled Northern Irish Conservatives face huge hurdles if

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they are to survive. They are less like real teams or even subs on the

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electoral benches and more like spectators in the stands. And even

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at that, I'm not convinced that either of them any longer

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understands the game being played, let alone the rules.

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There is a non-voting, pro-Union constituency out there that could

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be tapped into. I suspect, however, that the UUP and Conservatives,

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singly and collectively, have left it too late and made too many

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mistakes to make the necessary impact on it. Leaving this question

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- who will re-engage the growing numbers of politically and

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electorally disinterested? thought of Alex Kane. We have

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already heard how Peter Hain's or Prost -- autobiography has got him

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into hot water, but it does give insight into the peace process and

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about the politicians he had to In 2005 the peace process was

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faltering and the job of Secretary of State was back to being seen as

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a poisoned chalice. What sort of tactics did you have to use to put

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pressure on the party's to try and get them to work together? It was

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very difficult. People had been used to saying no on both sides.

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The public were saying, why should they continue to get these expenses

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and have their salaries paid? I deployed that argument. The water

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charges and some of the other reforms I introduced, I did them

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because I believed that why should my constituents in Wales or for

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that matter residents in Scotland or England their water charges but

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Northern Ireland residents not? Introducing that, I was well aware,

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and deliberately used it as a tactic to say, the solution is in

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your hands. You get your politicians into government and

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they can abolish them. Two years later the tactics have paid off. On

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7th May, 2007, the world came to watch as the assembly finally

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returned to Stormont. But did Peter Hain get the credit he deserved?

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Others had worked very hard over the years, especially Tony Blair

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and Bertie Ahern. It's for others to judge. Many thought I didn't but

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I'm not... It's not for me to say really. All I know was what people

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closely involved, including journalists and observers at the

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time said to me and said elsewhere that they don't think it would have

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been achieved on that timescale, had I not been in the job at the

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time. I felt it was the one thing that I'd done in government that I

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felt most proud of. But they have been no settlement without the

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politicians here. So what were they like to work with? In his book,

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Outside In, Peter Hain describes Ian Paisley as a real gentleman

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with old-fashioned manners. Mark Durkan was a talented leader with

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an enviable facility for phrase- making. In meetings, Gerry Adams

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and Martin McGuinness sometimes played good cop bad cop. And David

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Ford was pernickety and quick to take offence. The real show in town

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was Sinn Fein and the DUP. There was resentment about that from the

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Alliance Party also much the same kind of crumbling came from the

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SDLP, because they too were like the Ulster Unionists, on the

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margins of the big picture. You've described Ian Paisley as an old-

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fashioned gentleman. Yet that you doesn't chime with the many people

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who think he holds some responsibility for the Troubles.

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understand the point but dealing with him on a one-to-one basis was

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a joy. He's a lovely man to talk to. Where they are times when you found

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him difficult to work with? course I found him difficult to

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work with. Partly because he was a prisoner of both his own past and

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important elements in the DUP who didn't want him. All were very

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reluctant. He was at times very slow and then at times very

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courageous and fast. In the end, he left over his party to the anxiety

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and nervousness and opposition and criticism of some of the DUP banks,

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to make this courageous leap. I don't think anybody else in

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Unionism could have done that. it wasn't just the Unionists that

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have to be brought to the table. What effect did the northern bank

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robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney have on your dealings

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with Sinn Fein? I remember saying to Gerry Adams wants, referring to

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the northern bank robbery, he dismissed it and said the IRA and

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Sinn Fein had nothing to do with that. The kind of jocularly chided

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me for saying, you were falsely accused of a bank theft once, this

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was a bizarre 1975 bank theft that the South African security services

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said. He and I knew those cases were very different. Did you find

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it hard to trust Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, given the

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general belief of the IRA's involvement in those two issues?

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Well, they once said to me, we never trust anyone, Secretary of

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State, we never trust any British politician. I understand that. If

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you can build a trust where if you shake hands on an agreement,

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however difficult it has been, they know that you will deliver and you

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know that they will deliver. It's that kind of trust. I didn't find

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any problem with Martin McGuinness or Gerry Adams. On the contrary,

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they kept their word. It was this image that went around the world

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and signalled the peace deal in 2007. But Peter Hain says even the

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picture wasn't easy to achieve. sums up the difficult politics of

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Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley would not sit on the same side of the

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table next to Gerry Adams. Gerry Adams wanted to. We wanted be

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historic picture, which we got, of the two of them together. So we had

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an arrangement whereby a table was diamond shaped so that Ian Paisley

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was on the left-hand side facing them, and Gerry Adams was on the

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right-hand side of it. All the world they were sitting next to

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each other and were photographed as such but Ian Paisley's principles

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were protected and so were Gerry Adams'. The intimate thoughts of

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the former Secretary of State, Peter Hain. The Government's

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proposed welfare reforms have provoked the fiercest debate. At

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one end of the spectrum we have disgusted of Surbiton, who thinks

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every benefit claimant is it cheap and should be punished. At the

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other, the beating heart offering visions of homeless children around

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the country. Hearts and Minds is only for enlightened, rational

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debate, so let's have some with Les Allamby and Graham Gudgin. Les

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Allamby, the government does seem to feel it has widespread public

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support for these reforms. It seems to be able to laugh off the

:19:46.:19:49.

criticisms from the Lords and from others. Do you think that's the

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case? I think they've got some popular support but I think that is

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popular support based on a gross misconception. That is the notion

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that somehow a very large numbers of people get a great deal of money

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on benefit. If you look at the Cap, 60 % of the people affected by the

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cap live in London. That's because of high housing costs. In order for

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this cacti have some impact in Northern Ireland, you are going to

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have to have a very considerable number of children, possibly be a

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carer and getting carers benefits. Perhaps they should say nothing

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because they are pretty much going to be OK. The housing cost side

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will mean the impact will be far less prevalent than London and the

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south-east. But we have larger families and larger families can

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have an impact on the cap. David Cameron, I saw him almost playing

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to the gallery about, well, you wouldn't expect people to get

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�26,000 on benefit. If you had a number of children, if you had a

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reasonably high housing costs and if you were a carer looking after

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your elderly relative, you could find yourself caught by this cap.

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It doesn't seem to me when you are saving the state money elsewhere

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that you should be caught by a benefit cap. The vast majority of

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people don't... Are not better off on benefit than they would be in

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work. Graham Gudgin, is it just headlined seeking, this cap?

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probably is politics, it's mainly about London and some other areas

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in the south-east where rents are very high. The real question there

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is, it's not a question for Robben Island at all, but the real

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question is - should you be encouraging or subsidising low

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income people to live in central London? The government has done

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this for generations by building council houses there. It seems to

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me a pretty reprobate step to say, look, anyone unloading comes won't

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be able to live there. What they're going to have to do is the 20 miles

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out and commute into to a cleaning job at 6am. As do many middle

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income families who can't afford to live in the centre of London.

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do. Do come back to your original question, there is a very strong

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groundswell of support for reforms to welfare. I think there are so

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many unfairnesses and disincentives to work in the current system. The

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new system is trying to iron a lot of that out. I think it will help.

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It's not such a big revolution as all that in my view, but it's very

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much a move in the right direction to have a... How do you think this

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will affect Northern Ireland? People don't work on this. --

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people have done work on this. It will even out in the way that some

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people will get more money on benefits and others will get less.

:22:44.:22:48.

On the way in which it will hit Northern Ireland is the disability

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living allowance, will be have extraordinary large numbers of

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households claiming that benefit. It's like the disability capital of

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the UK for some reason. It's very interesting to speculate on why

:22:58.:23:03.

that is. But the government is quite keen that's a separate issue

:23:03.:23:08.

in cutting down the number of beneficiaries there. 185,500

:23:08.:23:13.

claimants of delay in Northern Ireland. Your figures show that.

:23:13.:23:18.

I'm not as sanguine as Graham is about the impact in terms of

:23:18.:23:22.

somehow been evening out and very reasonable. What these changes will

:23:22.:23:27.

do is effectively take about 500 to 600 million out of the economy in

:23:27.:23:31.

terms of benefit cuts. One thing we know about benefit claimants is by

:23:31.:23:34.

and large they spend virtually all their money in the local economy.

:23:35.:23:40.

For example, a single person on jobseeker's allowance gets �67.50.

:23:40.:23:44.

He or she spent that money in the local economy. This is the economic

:23:44.:23:49.

issue as well... Would it get more people into work? It would generate

:23:49.:23:53.

more money for the economy. idea that people are better off in

:23:53.:23:57.

work than out of work, again you need to unpacked back slightly. Yes,

:23:57.:24:01.

generally speaking people are better off in work, both

:24:01.:24:03.

financially and for their well- being. However, we have working

:24:03.:24:09.

poor as well as workless poor. It's important we realise that. With

:24:09.:24:12.

lone-parent, and the research suggests again that while lone

:24:12.:24:15.

parents are better off in work financially, there is a cost of

:24:15.:24:18.

that in terms of how your well- being is, the time you spend in

:24:18.:24:22.

work, what time you have to get up and the morning, there would you

:24:22.:24:25.

have to do. There is a lost them as well. It's not as straightforward

:24:25.:24:28.

as have the same work is good and workless is bad. Do you think in

:24:28.:24:35.

principle that reform is required? Yes. But if we look back, Universal

:24:35.:24:40.

Credit is potentially quite a good concept. It came from a dynamic

:24:40.:24:44.

benefits modelling which the Centre for Social Justice suspend --

:24:44.:24:47.

suggested spending 4 billion on in order to spend to save, and it

:24:47.:24:50.

would pay for itself. The government is prepared to spend 2

:24:50.:24:55.

billion. The problem is we've cut the idea, it's been cut in terms of

:24:55.:24:58.

trying to do it on the cheap. Their bald the simplification that this

:24:58.:25:03.

was designed to do, the work incentives this was designed to

:25:03.:25:07.

have are actually being impacted by saving money. Given we are taking

:25:07.:25:14.

22 billion out of the UK economy from changes before this government,

:25:14.:25:19.

we should have spent the money that dynamic benefits suggested to have

:25:19.:25:23.

on a proper system. You spoke about disincentives to work, but if there

:25:23.:25:27.

aren't any job than what is the point of these reforms?

:25:27.:25:30.

something the Labour government should have done during the good

:25:30.:25:33.

times. The coalition are having to do it under present conditions and

:25:33.:25:38.

it really is the worst time to do it. Beyond that, I think we should

:25:38.:25:43.

have a contract in society and go back what to -- go back to what we

:25:43.:25:45.

had before. All parties agree that we should have full employment,

:25:45.:25:50.

there should be jobs for everybody and there we can put pressure on

:25:50.:25:53.

the social security system. Lords have been making much of the

:25:53.:25:57.

impact of these reforms, the potential impact on children and

:25:57.:26:02.

children in poverty. Do you think that is justified? Absolutely. One

:26:02.:26:05.

of the paradoxes about his coalition government's set of

:26:05.:26:10.

reforms is the Conservative Party is the party of the family and yet

:26:10.:26:14.

we have frozen child benefit for three years, we have made cuts to

:26:14.:26:17.

support and child care for exactly the families who may have steam

:26:17.:26:21.

coming out of their ears after what I've said. In reality, that group

:26:21.:26:25.

of people have been hit badly. If you have a second child you are

:26:25.:26:28.

losing the Sure Start Maternity Grant. The Health and pregnancy

:26:28.:26:32.

Grant is going. Much of the attack is on families, particularly on

:26:33.:26:37.

families on low to middle incomes. It seems to be very strange, the

:26:37.:26:40.

set of targets seem to be strained. We all appear to be in this

:26:40.:26:43.

together as a result of the economic mess we are in. Why the

:26:43.:26:46.

focus is on families and particularly families with young

:26:46.:26:50.

children is beyond me. Child benefit is one of the big

:26:50.:26:54.

controversies. What do you think is going to end up having their?

:26:54.:26:58.

have been in a silly position for a long time, that we give child

:26:58.:27:03.

benefits to very affluent families. This is just recycling money. The

:27:03.:27:06.

ticket of them in tax and give it back in child benefit. Then there

:27:06.:27:09.

are civil servants having jobs in between come administering all of

:27:09.:27:14.

this. There's a lot of sorting out to be done. I do rather agree with

:27:14.:27:17.

lairs. If you look at the Scandinavian countries that have

:27:17.:27:22.

spent a lot more on social security than we do even in the UK, even

:27:22.:27:25.

more than in Northern Ireland, a lot of that is going on child

:27:25.:27:30.

benefit and child care. That is a good investment for society. We

:27:30.:27:36.

should be doing more of it. Let me make the case for child benefit

:27:36.:27:40.

being a universal benefit. I'd be in favour of a more progressive tax

:27:40.:27:43.

system, a more sensible way of bringing in money that was fairer.

:27:43.:27:48.

But the virtue of child benefit being universal is it's very simple,

:27:48.:27:51.

it's paid to mothers. The interesting bit about this new

:27:51.:27:55.

Universal Credit benefit that replaces the tax credit is almost

:27:55.:27:58.

certainly it can be paid to either partner, it will probably end up in

:27:58.:28:02.

the wallet rather than the purse. That is a regressive step back to

:28:02.:28:04.

the 80s when all the research showed there were problems with

:28:04.:28:09.

that in terms of where money is managed. It is managed by women,

:28:09.:28:13.

and the benefits look like they're going to be back being paid to men.

:28:13.:28:18.

That is where we must look at this time around. We will be back at the

:28:18.:28:25.

usual time next week. I hope you will join us. Goodbye. What am I,

:28:25.:28:30.

invisible? Some carry on this week. People are confused. Basically, you

:28:30.:28:36.

put your application in, you take your application out. In out in

:28:36.:28:41.

about you shake it all about. That's what it's all about! Some

:28:41.:28:45.

people don't like Derry be in the UK City of Culture. Particularly

:28:45.:28:49.

upset of the Real IRA, especially the Londonderry branch. Yes,

:28:49.:28:53.

Londonderry dissidents want Londonderry to be the UK's City of

:28:53.:28:58.

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