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

Happy 2017, it's going to be an interesting year.

Good interesting, all bad interesting, I'm not sure, but definitely interesting.

It's also wet, we're sitting in my office and if you can hear the pitter-patter of raindrops

that's hitting the window behind my two guests today.

I'm delighted to welcome back our regular contributor, Aaron Raport.

And in a moment we're going to be talking about American foreign policy and the ongoing

tug of war between the Obama administration as it leaves office and the Trump administration

as it prepares to enter office.

I'm also delighted to welcome back to the podcast, John Norton, John and I spoke in an earlier

incarnation of Talking Politics.

What seems like a lifetime ago, it was little less than two years ago and we were talking

about the British general election.

I haven't listened back to our conversation but I imagine it sounds pretty quaint now.

We were sort of worrying about Ed Miliband and Russell Brand and prehistoric figures like

that.

John writes the network of column every week in the observer which is a central reading

not just about technology but about politics as well.

And John, I know that you've been reflecting on all the things that have changed when we

think about the relationship between technology and politics and what we've learned in the

last six months, year, compared to our previous conversation, the British general election

itself seems like a very quaint event compared to what we've been through.

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