Hello, my name is David Ronson and this is Talking Politics.

And we are with you in real time this week. I'm joined by Helen Thompson and Chris

Bickerton. Some of us have been away. You may have noticed.

Some are highlights. Some are.

It has to be swimming in the sea and the Atlantic Ocean was I think around 18 degrees.

The boat trip around the fjords in Oslo was magical.

Getting completely soaked on the rain of marshes.

As always we're in my office and there are some rumbly lorries going down the road outside.

Please don't be put off. They come and they go.

And so we thought we would talk about things that have been on our minds.

We haven't gathered around this table for about a month.

Stuff's been happening.

We always does.

British politics has sort of been on holiday. I think Theresa May comes back to work today.

American politics has not been on holiday. I don't think.

I mean, with Trump it doesn't really.

He's either on holiday all the time or he's never on holiday.

There's no, but two weeks ago we had North Korea that rumbled on for a while.

This has been the week of Charlotteville and the White Supremacist and violence.

That story is ongoing. We're not going to focus on Trump today.

I'm sure we will in future episodes.

But each of us has sort of thought about something that's just been nagging away at us for a while.

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