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

I'm joined this week by Aaron Rapporte, Mahal Rafi Atal and Chris Bickerton.

We are eight days out from the British General Election and today's the day the circus rolls into

town, our town, Cambridge. Tonight is the leader's debate, though one leader we know won't be there,

Theresa May. Jeremy Corbyn might because he thought he did well the other night with Jeremy Paxman,

so he's on a roll, keep going with it. But it's Wednesday morning, the debates tonight.

We don't know. We also don't know if they're going to let us in. There was some hope that we might go to the spin room and talk to people about how they saw the debate. Maybe, but apparently we haven't got security clearance yet. So, by the time you hear this, all of that will be known. As of now, it is unknown. and we're going to talk about something else.

This election has been... time you hear this, all of that will be known. As of now, it is unknown. And we're going to

talk about something else. This election has been very parochial, I think. The interviews and

audience questioning of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn on Monday night, which has had a lot of coverage

and analysis, and I think most people feel that they each did about as well as you'd expect them to do.

But it was very domestic.

Yet, this is the week where Angela Merkel said that America will no longer protect Europe.

No one thought to bring that up, which is quite surprising.

No one thought to ask Theresa May whether she thought

Donald Trump still protected Europe. Let's try and put this in international perspective.

Erin, leaving aside the British election for now and will come back to it. So my sense is

that was quite significant. Maybe I'm wrong. And Angela Merkel was saying it in the context

of a German election. There are elections all the time. Everyone was saying it in the context of a German election.

There are elections all the time. Everyone is saying something because there's an election coming up.

So she said to a group of her supporters in Bavaria that what she'd taken away from the G7 summit

was that Europe now has to defend itself, basically, and that went down well with them. But if that's

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