Dan Rob Jones

Host of The Westminster Review of Books: Deeply researched interviews with authors of the best writing about politics, history and philosophy @WestReviewBooks

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

My new project: deeply researched interviews about U.K. & global politics, history and philosophy.

[The Westminster Review of Books @WestReviewBooks]

We have a trailer!

The Westminster Review of Books will be publishing new interviews with thinkers on politics, history and philosophy very soon.

https://t.co/jyW6NBbgl4

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

Massive news! I read with some panic, but thank God the umlauts are safe. https://t.co/rIZbll0g9C

[The Westminster Review of Books @WestReviewBooks]

We have a trailer!

The Westminster Review of Books will be publishing new interviews with thinkers on politics, history and philosophy very soon.

https://t.co/jyW6NBbgl4

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@piercepenniless Felt the same about The Two Popes! Absolutely no sense of the spiritual differences between Benedict & Francis, just secular traditionalism and progressivism

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@mrianleslie Increasingly think he's going to turn out to be the Gove of this government (I mean this mainly as a complement)

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

Who in Labour today could do this? Rayner perhaps the nearest equivalent, but Prezza is incomparable

[max tempers @maxtempers]

Reminded of Prescott's hilarious appearance on Top Gear. Fearlessly goes up against the live audience to bat for the M4 bus lane.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@GarethDennis Ok, genuinely curious: What is it that makes it cost 100 million? Is it the materials? The construction costs? The fact that it's a complex structure. Honestly trying to get my head around it.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

Gareth might be the only person in the world who genuinely thinks £100 million for a 1km mesh tunnel to stop HS2 hitting some endangered bats is good value for money.

[Gareth Dennis @GarethDennis]

I worked near this thing when I was redesigning the HS2 alignment around Calvert... £100M for a complex, 1km-long structure is really good value!

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@GarethDennis I guess what makes this seem so incongruous is that it's just direct spending rather than a poorly designed system with weird/bad incentives.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@GarethDennis It's just... I genuinely cannot get my head around how anyone could think 100 million pounds isn't too much to spend on protecting some rare bats.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@GarethDennis That also sounds like bad value for money! I'd be very happy to get out my flaming torch and pitchfork about that too, but more than one thing can be bad at once!

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@EddieMillar @Sam_Dumitriu A hundred million! On protecting a bat colony!

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@EddieMillar @Sam_Dumitriu I just find this so hard to get my head around. The exchequer is so clearly knackered, we have no money to invest in any part of the state, but somehow we spent a hundred million pounds to protect some rare bats? How on earth did no one stop it??

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

The motivation behind the legal challenges forcing absurd spending like this isn't genuine ecological concerns, it's anti-HS2 campaigners trying to make the whole thing so unaffordable that it'll be cancelled altogether.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@davidtorrance Solid point! But I think the active noun is Minister - you wouldn't call the First Minister's term of office his/her 'firstship'.

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@ajwillshire Every time this happens I just remember that branding consultants don't get paid if they tell a business not to change their brand, and more often than not they shouldn't

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@christiancalgie Yes!! I always wondered if Mallory was meant to be a peer, or if they meant the joint intelligence committee (which I think is chaired by a civil servant) and just got it a bit wrong?

[Dan Rob Jones @DanRobJones]

@davidtorrance Thanks!