Unite and lead? I'd bet on Jon. (Cruddas Conference Call)

Last night saw Jon Cruddas’ inaugural telephone conference as deputy leadership candidate. 6pm rolled around and Labour bloggers began calling in and logging on, stating their names to the accompaniment of classical music. It was all pretty civil, with people introducing themselves and giving fellow bloggers the chance to speak and ask questions in the debating session which followed Jon outlining how he thought the campaign had been going thus far.

I’ll kick off my discussion of the conference with the caveat that all “quotes” are not word for word what Jon said but, rather, taken from my rough notes. I do feel a little wrong about publishing this, because of that, without having it checked first. But Jon is a member of the blogging community so I’m sure either he or one of his team can drop by and correct me/develop their arguments more/request that I remove said quotes, should they feel them to be inaccurate. (Scrybe nervously awaits an angry bellowing from Jon).


Jon was, as usual*, very down-to-earth and relaxed, as well as being pretty frank in discussing the issues which came up – unusual for a politician. There is, I think, something about him which allows you to take what he says at face value and trust him. He began by talking about the campaign, and about blogging in particular, saying that he is “interested in the whole phenomena [of blogging] but wary of the language used,” recounting a tale (published) about Tony Blair allegedly trying to sound cool and it failing (circa 1997). He also thought that there is “really effective, lateral, quick communication available here,” describing the blogging world as being “vibrant,” and stating that he was very interested in using it not only for his current campaign, but also as part of renewing a general debate within and about the party, and for future elections. He said, “I’m really interested in blogging as a key component of the party, and its campaigns and debates, un the future.”

He informed us that he did at one stage wonder whether we could rebuild the grassroots of the party when all the indices show us in freefall, and whether the deputy campaign could engender this – a solid reason for not abandoning the election, as some politicians have suggested.

One of his staff mentioned visiting the Democrats and how they had found blogging to be very useful, but that they also found it difficult to link that in with the grassroots campaigning, something which is currently being addressed by several Labour bloggers I could name. Cruddas outlined two different conceptions of the role of blogging, one being to view it as an end in itself, supplanting traditional campaigning methods, the other being to view as one component of a much wider campaign, taking the latter view.

When asked about whether he thought politicians’ could allow the public to appropriate their message, to have a sense of ‘ownership’ of that message by being involved in the creative process, something which blogging, facebook, and similar phenomena tends to do, Jon was very honest, saying “its quite exposed, quite a vulnerable position to be in, when you do it right…that goes against the gain of the standard psychology of politicians.” That said, Jon is no standard politician, and he does seem willing to embrace and adapt to the new forms of campaigning which are now becoming more and more prevalent in British politics.

Others have noted his comments regarding his decision not to accept the deputy prime ministership, should he be successful, so I would be a knave not to mention it. He was pretty clear that he could (constitutionally) and would want to be in the Cabinet, in order to be a spokesperson there for the party, and he would accept the principle of collective responsibility in so doing. He also intimated that we should abolish the post of Chair of the party, since the line of agency did not stretch so far as having an influence on Cabinet sessions (perhaps that point is my own and not Jons? Hopefully he’ll see this, so we can find out) and the post is not democratically decided, hardly in keeping with the idea of having a democratic party. He also said of having the deputy leader fulfilling the role he has outlined, “it signals a much more deliberative method of policy formulation with the party included at an earlier stage,” thus hopefully preventing the party feeling policies are simply dropped on it, like top-up fees.

Throughout he was polite, and generally calmly spoken, except for the occasional betrayal of what seemed a genuine excitement on his part to be discussing these issues with his fellow Labour members and supporters. Having had the opportunity to have met him, I can attest to this affability being an integral part of who he is, a good sign for one who aims to be the link between the party at large and the PLP. It shouldn't worry readers that these traits might make him a weak link, since he can also be quite outspoken and, as I've said previously, formidable in debates. When called upon to describe him, I am reminded of the latter part of a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which I have mutated to form the title of this post, "Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one." The only question which remains to eb answered, is whether the party give him the chance to demonstrate this in practise, as our Deputy Leader.

Okay, that’s it. My report of the conference, in all its glory. Well, almost. There are a couply of other things I could say, but I am just working from my notes and would feel more comfortable about posting the remaining titbits of information after having checked that doing so would be okay. There’s nothing controversial, I just want to check the accuracy of my notes. Enjoy!


Oh, and do head over to his site and read his posts. But go easy on him, he's only just got into this blogging experience, so I'm sure he'd appreciate the occasional kind word of encouragement. He was also very interested to hear our suggestions for how to develop his campaign, so feel free to post any ideas you might have.

* Based on the accounts those who have had the chance to speak to him, or hear him debate/give a speech.

What Do You Want To Ask Jon Cruddas? Urgent.

Okay, from 6pm tonight, I'll be able to ask Jon your questions, so post them here and I shall do. Provded they're not too lewd, that is.

I'll check this at 5.30pm today, so make sure you post by then!

Labour Deputy Election Facebook Update (5)

Okay, here's the week's roundup of how the respective deputy candidates are doing on facebook. To make it a little more useful, I've cross-referenced the groups sizes from my last update, so the first numbers in brackets indicate what the sizre of the group was at the last count, and the second set of bracketed number very handily give you the size change over time. Over christmas, I'm hoping to do an update which looks at how the groups have done since I started blogging about them. Note the operative word in that sentence, hoping.

As we can see (below), two candidates have lost support since the last update, while the rest of the groups continue to display growth. The largest growth is evident in the Cruddas group, up 6 on the last update. It will be itneresting to see how the growth rates change over the coming months - I wonder if the Cruddas group can maintain its title as the biggest growing group?

Facebook Deputy Leader Support Group Update in Numercial Terms:

Johnson - 229 (233) (-4)
Cruddas - 51 (45) (+6)
Harman - 15 (11) (+4)
Blears - 14 (15) (-1)
Hain - 13 (11) (+2)

Jon Cruddas on the Phone... Web Exclusive.

Jon Cruddas MP for Barking and Dagenham, and also one of the candidates for the deputy leadership, has announced that he will be holding a conference early next week for bloggers and members of the facebook group.

Participants will be able to speak to Jon about his campaign plans, and there will be a Q&A session as part of the event. From what I hear, it will take place by phone, although I am yet to receive the full details.

This is a fantastic opportunity for bloggers to probe the mind of one of the most interesting deputy leadership candidates standing so far. It is also a web-exclusive, since there will be no mainstream media people involved (to the best of my knowledge).

I'm definitely going to particiate, and shall be blogging about it afterwards. It is a shame none of the other candidates have considered this a worthy way of interacting with the grassroots supporters, as it would have been brilliant to be able to do a blogging-interview series, of sorts. But Jon has made the decision to get involved, so I'll be supporting that, and hoping that the other candidates start to realise how useful such endeavours could be.

If you have any questions that you would like me to ask him, don't hesitate to post them here, and I'll do my best to get them asked. If you are a fellow blogger or facebooker, perhaps you would prefer to join the event yourself. Anyone can sign up to faceboook, and the Cruddas group is called "Cruddas for Deputy" - you can search for it once you have joined. The details of how to become involved were released there first, so its really worth joining if you want to stay ahead of the rest when it comes to knwoing what's going on, Marvin Gaye would say.

I may update this post over the weekend a I get more information about it.

Labour Deputy Election Facebook Update (4)

This post includes some comments posted by members of each of the groups, to give you a feel for their nature as well as their size. If you support one of the deputy candidates, please join facebook and join oneof the groups (you no longer need to be a university or shool student to join and there is a wide range of people on there, but none of the weirdos who stalk myspac, thankg god!) - the groups can be found by a simple search once you are a member, the title for each groups is given below when I post some comments from each of them. There has been some change since my last post, so without further ado.........

(numbers in brackets indicate membership size from labour facebook update (3) which dates from 02/12/2006). I've also just added tags for all my posts on this topic, for easy reference. I'm a hard-working,happy bunny of a Scrybe. ;P

Alan Johnson - 233 members (218)
Jon Cruddas - 45 members (39)
Hazel Blears - 15 members (15)
Peter Hain - 11 members (7)
Harriet Harman - 11 members (6)
Hilary Benn - 9 members (0)

I'll update (as an edit) this post shortly, giving details of how the groups have changed in size since update (3).

Jon Cruddas has very kindly agreed to do an interview with the members of his group - if you join, you too can submit questions to him.

Now, for some posts from each group (in the order given in the membership list above).

Johnson for Deputy:

M****** A******* (York UK) wrote
at 1:24am on December 6th, 2006
Despite the fact that his secretary told me he was "too busy to visit" out uni the man is a Legend and proper Labour! Vote Johnson for deputy!

K*** M****** (no network) wrote
at 1:09pm on December 1st, 2006
If he becomes deputy won't this be the first time in history that neither the Prime Minister nor Deputy Prime Minister went to an oxbridge university. Good thing, or not?


Cruddas for Deputy:

S*** T***** wrote
at 12:43am on November 29th, 2006
I don't know [in reference to when Cruddas might himself join the group], but he was speaking at a Young Fabian event tonight and was really impressive. We hit the pub for a post-event drink (sans JC, of course) and he was all anyone would talk about...so good...leadership qualities..you could really believe in him...etc. Even those whom I did not think would have been supporters of him beforehand.

someone asked him which leadership candidate he supported. fortunately, Conor did a wonderful job of chairing and cut the question down as being utterly irrelevant to the debate topic (how labour reconnects with the working class).

J*** G***** wrote on Nov 29, 2006 at 5:02 PM
I think that it is important for the Labour Party to conduct the elections for Deputy Leadership in an open and friendly manner. This is a desperately needed opportunity for the Party to "renew" itself in office; to take an honest and genuine look at its strengths and weaknesses and to act accordingly to improve its fortunes. If we do this successfully we have every chance of beating the Tories at the next general election and thus securing a fourth term of Labour government. However, if the election for Deputy Leader is seen as a divisive event the chances of Labour success will be severely jeapordised. A Labour Party full of incoherence and bitterness is obviously not going to look good next to Cameron's smoothly rebranded Conservatives.

The vast majority of Labour Party members acknowledge this. I'm sure that everyone is aware of how Labour infighting in the 1980s contributed significantly to 18 years of Tory misrule. It seems that - so far at least - everything is being conducted in a friendly manner, and this is certainly to be welcomed. Candidates and their supporters should concentrate their energies on trying to convince members of their individual merits and on articulating their vision for the future of the Labour movement. This is much more constructive than engaging in any sort of negative campaigning.

The Alan Johnson facebook group slightly worries me by making comments such as "If you want a Deputy Leader that listens and doesn't just say what he/she thinks grassroots members want to hear (Hain, Cruddas, Harman) Vote Johnson for Deputy". Of course I accept that it will be required to sometimes criticise the other candidates to an extent, but this claim is just so disingenuous and unnecessary that I think it reflects badly on the Johnson group. Cruddas is the only candidate for Deputy Leader who has outlined a clear policy platform that he would pursue if elected. Much of this concentrates on reinvigorating internal Labour Party democracy - such as allowing party members to elect the party Chair, rejuvenating the National Policy Forum, making sure local parties will be provided with more funding, and increasing the power of Conference over policy - which will undeniably empower the grassroots. It is therefore clearly false to accuse Cruddas of deceitfully only saying what he thinks the grassroots want to hear. I am yet to hear the other candidates (including Johnson) explain how they will give a greater voice to ordinary party members. I think Alan Johnson is a fine politician with admirable qualities and I would definitely want him to retain a high-profile position in any future cabinet. However, as someone who is convinced that drastic change is needed in the Labour Party structure and policy direction if we are to remain in government, it is obvious to me that the only candidate who seems to genuinely want to address those concerns is Jon Cruddas.

p.s I would also like to state that the badtempered post made on our group's profile by the founder of the Alan Johnson group is a very very bad example of conducting this competition in a comradely manner!


Blears for Deputy:

D*** T***** (Texas) wrote
at 2:26pm on November 20th, 2006
You must be joking. All politicians are masters of spin but you'd need a whole new term to describe the rubbish this woman comes out with. Haven't you ever seen her interviews? She never gives a straight answer. The public hates that sort of thing. "When did you decide not to renew the existing legislation?" "Well we've decided to bring forward this new legislation because..." Just answer the damn question!
Message - Report

L**** W**** (London) wrote
at 6:23pm on November 13th, 2006
Sista Blears is just amazing!!
I wonder if she would be the smallest deputy leader ever??? For that reason alone, she should get our vote!!!!


Hain for Deputy:

D** C****** (Kingston) wrote
at 7:50pm on December 3rd, 2006
Anything that will improve politics in this country has my backing. Even if I am not a Labour supporter per se.
Message - Report

Z** P************ (Surrey) wrote
at 1:23pm on December 1st, 2006
hey i love hain! go hain! x

Harman for Deputy:

C** S**** (Lancaster) wrote
at 10:08pm on December 6th, 2006
9 members now... one more, and we'll be in double figures!

T** F***** (Edinburgh) wrote
at 2:58pm on November 23rd, 2006
4 members, wow we are going strong!

Benn for Deputy

A*** H***** (no network) wrote
at 8:25am on December 6th, 2006
Check out www.labourhome.org/2ndgues
s it's a leadership/deputy leadership predictor and you have to guess which mps will support which other mps for the positions
Message - Report

A***** K**** M***** (Kent Uni.) wrote
at 5:05pm on December 5th, 2006
yeah I wish hils was running for leader, and i am really torn on who to vote for but I think it will be either hilary or harman. I am surprised that hils is so low on the membership, seeing as he is front runner for the race! i thought he would have a lot of appeal amongst the students, but (possibly because of HULC) it is johnson who leads the pack, strange considering he is the education secretary.

Deputy Candidate Faces Inquiry.

According to the BBC, a senior QC, Peter Scott, has been appointed to investigate whether Peter Hain misled the High Court over the interim victims commissioner appointment.

It doesn't say how long it will take for the inquiry to present its findings, but this surely cannot be conducive to any campaign Hain might be making for the deputy leadership of the party. But I think he should be given the chance to answer the claims being made against him. I just wonder what he'll have to say about it all.

Labour Deputy Election Facebook Update (3) and My Support for Cruddas

Okay, I have been messaged by el tom to remind me that I am currently neglecting my duties in this regard. So here's an update of this week's standings.

Johnson - 218 members
Cruddas - 39 members
Blears - 15 members
Hain - 7 members
Harman - 6 members


This blog is, of course, supporting Jon Cruddas for Deputy. Having seen him speak, I would argue that he is capable of appealing to a wide range of voters/Labour Party members as he is a formidable personality and is capable of very accurately pitching his speeches/comments to their intended audience (i.e. he doesn't speak over the heads of those who are not experts, yet doesn't patronise those who are). He is the kind of politician who has the potential to be great; he engenders a sense of belief and trust in his audience towards him.

Furthermore, it is wholly evident that something must be done to stem the decline of party membership and political activism more generally. While some point to the rise of single issue grous, as someone I was recently reading astutely ointed out, there is a problem that the idea of direct democracy is being replaced by direct debit. Jon Cruddas is the only deputy leadership candidate who has given a clear outline of how he intends to reform the party stucture so as to empower the grassroots and create genuine incentives for support. He is also (to the best of my knowledge, do correct me if I'm wrong) rightly critical of the idea of supporter's clubs for political parties and how an increase in their scope could act as a disincentive to join the party proper (something I was critical of in an Anticipations article last year).

His plans to separate the party deputyship from the governmental post serves as an indication of his lack of personal gain as a motive for running for this office, and his long standing anti-facism work on the ground is further evidence that he is not merely uttering platitudes designed to curry favour with the currently favoured (i.e. the electorate in this race), but is committed to his plans and lives up to them hmself - a refreshing level of integrity which is as forceful as a slap to the face of cynics of the political process.

Regarding the anti-facism work he has done/is doing, as much as I hate to bring anecdotal arguments to the fray, I have to say that, as someone who spent four years being attacked on the grounds of race (quite seriously attacked), I have the utmost respect for the assiduous work he has undertaken.

My only concern regarding his stance thus far is the possibility that empowering the grassroots could lead to a similar situation as that created by the rise of the Militant Tendency faction within the Labour Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s and the damaging effect it had in places like Liverpool where it bankrupted the council. However, this is not a necessary concomitant of party reform; it would infact be detrimental to the party since the effect of MT in Liverpool was a dampening of party support and grassroots involvement which persists to this day (they bankrupted the council in 1985, not last month or anything). In this regard, I am happy to work with him to ensure that such an event is unlikely to reoccur, and I am confident that he is also concerned about this aspect of party reform. I would rather work with him to ensure that it is prevented than to use it as the sole, and hardly justifiable basis, upon which to withdraw my support for his campaign.

In short, Cruddas rocks!

Cue music.

Labour Facebook : We Have Been Noticed.

I got my weekle Cruddas newsletter today. Here is what it said:

Hook up on facebook

Facebook is a networking website which people can use to chat and discuss issues. Some people have set up an independent Cruddas for Deputy group on the site where supporters can chat online. Although it hasn’t been set up by us and doesn’t have a formal link with Jon’s campaign, it certainly looks like a great project. If you have a Facebook profile already, click here to join the Cruddas for Deputy group – or you can sign up as a new Facebook member here.

It said some other things too, of course. But I thought this bit was pretty kewl.

Labour Deputy Election Facebook Update (2)

Compare the support (listed in the post further down this page, or with the same title of this post but missing the (2)) for the various deputy candidates as registered on facebook with that registered on the political penguin site (shown in this post - will provide link to political pnguin site shortly, I'm experiencing technical difficulties right now).

Who's your money on for Deputy Leader?
Hilary Benn
7 41.2%

Jon Cruddas
6 35.3%

Alan Johnson
2 11.8%

Hazel Blears
1 5.9%

Peter Hain
1 5.9%

Harriet Harman
0 0%

Jack Straw
0 0%

Labour Deputy Elections Facebook Update

This is from about 30 minutes ago. Group membership is as follows:

Johnson: 199 members
Cruddas: 24 members
Blears: 15 members
Harman: 5 members
Benn: 4 members
Hain: 2 members



DO bear in mind that:

(a) many of the Johnson members seem not to be fully in support of him, so his lead may be a little misleading, and
(b) one need not be a member of the Labour Party in order to join these groups, so they may not be indicative of grassroots support which could be translated into votes when the coup (er, I mean election) comes, but
(c) facebook did a pretty good job of calling the recent American elections, so you never know!

Facebook Labour Leader and Deputy Elections Update

Okay, my mate Jack and I decided that it wasn't fair that some deputy candidates did not have facebook groups. Given that many members of the Alan Johnson group do not actually support him and just want a place to discuss the forthcomng elections, it was skewing our stats. So Jack has kindly set up groups for Harriet Harman and Peter Hain. Hilary Benn and various others have yet to find representation on facebook. But, with that I am now able to give an update of group support. (Please note that Jack is officially suppoorting the great Jon Cruddas, so his membership of the groups he started is purely tokenistic and temporary).

Harman for Deputy: 2 members
Hain for Deputy: 1 member
Blears for Deputy: 15 members
Cruddas for Deputy: 22 members
Johnson for Deputy: 168 members

Labour needs a REAL contest for leader (and McDonnell is not providing it): 48 members
Gordon Brown for Prime Minister: 79 members
Stop David Cameron...his lies make Baby Jesus Cry: 306 members

Labour Elections Facebook Update.

Due to sloth (and the fact that I am still working at this late hour), I'm just updating the three main groups today.

Cruddas 21
Johnson 149
Blears 15

Some of the "support" for Johnson is misleading, however - this is actually more a group to discuss the deputy electins generally than a specific johnson supporter group (although there are plenty within the group), as this excerpt (copy and pasted) from the Johnson for Deputy wall indicates (names inventively altered to protect privacy):


C**** G***** (Nottingham) wrote
at 5:24pm on November 12th, 2006
Go Johnson! Anyone but Harriet Harmon...
Message - Report

S** C****** (LSE) wrote
at 3:01pm on November 12th, 2006
we need a deputy who didn't vote for Iraq or ignore lebanon, almost the whole cabinet is tarnished. Some one like John Denham would restore some balance, or Kim Howells maybe
Message - Report

F***** G**** D* F****** (UCL) wrote
at 12:16pm on November 12th, 2006
I think that it is far too early to decide who the best candidate is to be the deputy leader. Why have we discounted Hilary Benn? Harriet Harman too.. I was not convinced by AJ at Stoke Rochford.Why not keep an open mind and evaluate each candidate objectively without being sucked into partisan debate concerning one`s past employment..Johnson may have been a postman and trade unionist but surely in this day and age other things matter..I like to think that the electorate and Labour party members are a little more complex and not so easily pleased.I want a deputy leader/PM who can effectively convey our numerous success stories to the electorate but also be honest with us over our failings as a government and provide us with ideas as to how to correct the mistakes that have been made,(we have not had 9years of unbridled success,esp in the realm of foreign policy.)
Lets keep and open mind and see who comes up with the best ideas to lead us into a 4th term.
Message - Report

Facebook/Labour thing.

How many people are interested in my updates of this? I'm thinking of either

(a) moving it to another blog, for easy reference if it has sufficient popularity

(b) posting fortnightly/monthly downloadable digests of what has happened in the labour leadership/deputy race as far as facebook is concerned (hopefully with reference to outside media, if someone's willing to help me)

(c) reducing the updates to twice weekly and/or when something major happens. again, help re notification of any major press releases would be useful in this. (I'm interested to see how the groups' popularities respond to positive/negative media coverage of the candidates).

Your thoughts would be welcome. Thanks.

*1*

Further Facebook/Labour Update.

Having painstaking cross-referenced names in the two Jon Cruddas groups, I can now give you the official update for today.

Jon Cruddas: 23 members
Hazel Blears: 15
Alan Johnson: 119 (HOW? HTF DID THAT HAPPEN??)


I'm Voting Labour in 2007: 86
Gordon Brown for Prime Minister: 79
Prime Minister's Questions: 317
The Bevanites: 15
Tony Blair is a National Hero: 10

I've got to work now, but hopefully I will update again later, with the membership numbers for such illustrious groups as "Margaret Thatcher Appreciation Society" "Death to Margaret Thatcher Society" and the respective Labour and Conservative groups. This may take a little time, since some groups may differ in their "joining requirements" (i.e. they may limited to certain universities, or require the creator to okay people's applications).

I can, at this stage report that there is a sizable David Cameron support group, and the members cite reasons for their support, such as "I think he's HOT." Now, that's what happens when you ignore Bevan's call for a totally free NHS and start introducing fees for glasses, amongst other things.

Update of Labour elections.

Here's how facebook are calling it so far:



Cruddas 4 Deputy (group 1) : 15 members
Cruddas for deputy (group 2) : 11 members
Johnson for deputy : 114 members
Blears for deputy : 16 members


I'm voting Labour in 2007 : 86 members
Brown for Prime Minister : 78 members
Tony Blair is a National Hero : 10 members


So, alan johnson seems pretty popular then. But looking at the members list, I can see quite a few paid up tories supporting him, so I wonder how this will translate in the real world.

If I'm not mistaken, support for Hazel Blears has haemorrhaged, while the two Cruddas groups, taken together would give a misleading score of 26 since some people are members of both goups. Therefore, we shall settle with the conservative figure of 22 for Cruddas.

The other potential candidates are still unpopular to have their own goup. Although Jack Straw does have the support of 48 people over his veil comments. You really don't want to read some of the posts about that.


(If anybody can do screen grabs of the facebook site - I wouldn't say no to the group pages for any of the above).

Facebook Calls Labour Contest!

Okay, a few days ago I posted on "Facebook calling the recent U.S. elections." And following a conversation with a friend who was considering backing Cruddas for the Labour Deputy post, I changed my "status" on facebook to "I am supporting JON CRUDDAS FOR LABOUR DEPUTY." Within a couple of hours, another friend, Jack, invited me to join his group "Jon Cruddas for Deputy!" This got me thinking, and having now researched the facebook groups, my findings on the Labour Leadership and Deupty Leadership contests can be found below. Unfortunately, the groups do not have informatioin on when they were founded, which makes the membership numbers difficult to assess (I know the Cruddas one was only started yesterday, while others have been around longer). I'll try to keep this updated as the contest progresses.



The Labour Leadership/Deputy Leadership race as of 5.25pm, Sunday 12th November, 2006:
(Format= Group: Membership numbers)

Hazel Blears for Deputy: 14 members
Alan Johnson for Deputy: 32 members
Jon Cruddas for Deputy: 9 members

Brown for Prime Minister: 78 members
Labour needs a REAL contest for leader: 48 members
I'm voting Labour in 2007: 85 members

McDonnell, Hain, Harman, Reid, and everyone else has evdiently failed to galvanise the youth vote, since they have no support groups. Though perhaps with this lack of support, they are the potential candidates who would most benefit from a support group. In every sense of the term.