Jonny Dixon-Smith

Teacher, Lawyer, Writer.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

I’m still pro-EU but this is spot on

[Andrew Langley @saintdiamond1]

As a nation we are skint, and many are suffering, because

(In order of magnitude):

1. We spent a generations wealth trying to track an airborne respiratory virus.

2. We decided to engage in unilateral economic disarmament by way of Net Zero, with the rest of the world looking on laughing whilst eating our lunch.

3. Leftwing “progressiveness” infected my party who allowed our institutions to be led by our left wing opponents, gave succour to Quangos and grew the state, all to be nice and not offend their dinner party friends.

4. Adherence to short term “popular” politics rather than harder, driven, long term needs of the country. Rather than tell the average voter they are like 6 year olds who haven’t learned delayed gratification we continue to give them biscuits when they scream. So in short a lack of leadership.

5. Incentivising idleness and punishing success.

The least consequential thing that’s happened in recent decades is Brexit, a marginal impact when compared to any of the above.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

#Dubai - here we come

[Ruslan Khairullin @Rus_Khairullin]

5 things 3 years in Dubai taught me that nothing else in life could have.

1. Safety isn’t a personality trait of a country. It’s a policy choice.
I leave my phone on a restaurant table here and the waiter chases me down the street to return it. The same phone in Paris gets stolen in 90 seconds. London has 91,000 phone thefts a year. SF has people stepping over fentanyl bodies on the way to meetings. None of this is about culture. It’s about which governments still bother enforcing the laws they have.

2. Low taxes don’t mean a broken state.
Dubai charges 0% income tax and delivers cleaner streets, faster hospitals, working metros, and a functional police force. France charges 53% and can’t give you a doctor in under 6 months. The problem in the West was never the tax rate. It was where the money actually ends up going.

3. Boring is the most underrated luxury in the modern world.
Just sunrise, coffee, and a city that works. Every Western capital feels exhausting within 48 hours of landing now.

4. Your environment beats your willpower every time.
In a place where the system isn’t fighting you, your output goes up without trying. Most Westerners spend half their daily energy just absorbing the friction their own country creates on purpose. Move to a place that works and your ceiling rises overnight.

5. The countries that lecture the loudest are always the ones quietly losing.
Europe spends every news cycle explaining why Dubai is “fake” or “soulless” or “doesn’t have culture.” Meanwhile every founder I know who actually has options ends up here within 18 months of visiting. Real winners don’t write op-eds about why they’re winning. They just keep raising their prices.

Best decision I ever made. 🇦🇪

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@marcwebber She’s a good coach no doubt but not great at TV presenting & the set design meant few people even listened to what she was saying, let alone understood it.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@AllisonPearson It was one of the worst pieces I’ve seen in sports broadcasting. I think she was the wrong choice but also @ITV completely stitched her up with dreadful set decoration and concept.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@Wimbledon Zverev 💪

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@JamesMelville They’re always the best - I’m English but was working with loads ofScots in France 98 who kilted me up & fully immersed me 😂

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@Fox_Claire Lockdown’s impact can’t be overstated; it introduced a destructive & self-indulgent philosophy to impressionable young people. We told them they didn’t need to work, that their health & safety trumped everything. No successful society has ever been built on such a principle.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

This was my biggest fear about the philosophical & social consequences of Lockdown:

[Claire Fox @Fox_Claire]

Do too many young people lack an appetite/resilience for working? Why are so many 16 to 24-year-olds claiming they're too ill to work? Obviously the welfare system is full of perverse incentives - you can be better off on benefits than with a job. But it seems there are deeper problems eating away at generational resilience - eg, the medicalisation of everyday problems, or the fact that many young people have internalised the Lockdown lesson that health trumps jobs, school, economy etc...

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@GoodwinMJ A bit unfair. I am sure he genuinely cares. But he’s a careerist too.He’s also not up to the job of running a complex capitalist free-market system, which, like it or not, is what we have. We need people who understand that and don’t handicap it but allow it to generate wealth.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

A more positive spin on AI and one I think I agree with

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

True

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@layxsnv Obvs C.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

The Greens 🤣

[Adam Brooks AKA EssexPR 🇬🇧 @EssexPR]

I’ve just watched someone commit digital and reputational suicide on camera.

This is the guy that the far left Greens are putting up as their front man to understanding the economy 😂🤦🏻‍♂️

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@RollingHedge And Fiona Bruce’s Marxist alarm goes off so she whips in with a quick bit of pro Labour propaganda to counter the common sense

[Michelle Dewberry @MichelleDewbs]

I went to a state school.

I used to be against private schools. I used to think they were toffs & people who thought they were better than us.

Then I matured.

I now realise that in the main, the people who send their kids to one are just normal folk who have decided to prioritise best education for their children and often make significant sacrifice to do so. Alongside this, they also help fund the state education system, which they don’t use.

Whatever problems state schools face, it certainly isn’t as a result of private schools. If anything, kids going private eases pressure on the state system.

The closure of these schools are utterly tragic for the kids affected.

The policy attempts to damage the private system are an act of societal self-harm.

Anyone who celebrates it, is frankly, a fool.

https://t.co/p3w0ZSxL6j

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@afneil Totally - looking forward to it - we’re moving over there ❤️👌

[Joe Michalczuk @joemichalczuk]

A shower screen shattered all over my wife this week.

Over the next 72 hours, the NHS got almost everything wrong.

A cautionary tale of a system that is broken (with the usual caveat that everyone working in it is doing their best) 👇

I called an ambulance.

All good at first: “It’s on its way.”
Ten minutes later: “Actually, there are no ambulances for hours - can you get her to hospital?”

So I loaded my bleeding wife into the car, along with the kids and the dog, and drove to A&E.

Ten hours later, she came home - having given up after not even being offered a plaster.

The next morning, we called our GP: “Any chance she could see a nurse?”
“No - as the ambulance referred her to hospital, we can’t see her.”

So I went to the pharmacy and bought a first aid kit.

Because apparently that’s where we are now - me and a pack of plasters, in one of the richest countries in the world.

This morning, still in pain, still untreated, and with a ballooning foot, we went to an urgent treatment centre.

At first, smooth. She was seen in under two hours. X-ray done.
“Nasty cut, but nothing broken.”

Relief.

Two hours later, the phone rang.

It was the hospital.

“Sorry - we got that completely wrong. Your foot is broken and the wound needs antibiotics.”

If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.

And the truth is - anyone who uses the system has a story like this.

We need to stop clinging to an idealised version of the NHS and have a grown-up conversation about how to fix it.

Free healthcare for all should remain a principle - but pretending the current model works isn’t helping anyone.

Almost every other developed country combines public healthcare with some level of private provision - and all deliver better outcomes as a result.

Yet in the UK, even suggesting that tends to get shut down before the conversation starts.

That’s not protecting the NHS. It’s protecting a cult.

We don’t need ideology. We need honesty about what works.

We need a brilliant NHS in practice for all of us - not one we’re told to revere while it quietly crumbles, and where anyone who speaks up is dismissed or discredited.

When are we going to get serious about the things that actually matter - and have the difficult national conversations needed to fix them?

We don’t need to abandon the NHS.
We need to be honest about fixing it.

We shouldn’t just shrug our shoulders.
We have to be better.
We need to vote for real change.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

Our refusal to change the NHS is obsessive to the point of insanity, given the data. Suicidal empathy , to quote @GadSaad

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This is the reason why we can never reform healthcare in the UK — or even have a sensible debate about it.
The moment anyone suggests alternative/additional ways of funding health Labour rushes out privatisation smears and claims US private health insurance is being proposed.
Labour has been doing it for decades. It explains why the NHS is effectively beyond reform.
The two worst health systems in the rich world are in America and the UK. It’s why nobody has ever copied them. It would be mad to go from ours to theirs (or vice versa).
But Europe is awash with health systems that can call on several sources of funds, including many with compulsory public health insurance schemes. They have better health outcomes than the NHS. They are free at the point of use (like the NHS). Most of them are better funded.
But Labour puts them out of bounds, refuses even to discuss or consider. So patient care suffers. NHS struggles on.
Labour is always telling us we need to get closer to Europe. It’s where we belong. But not when it comes to health, where it insists no lessons can be learned. Pretty pathetic, really.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@afneil Absolutely right. Keep saying it.

[Jonny Dixon-Smith @jonnydixonsmith]

@HoTPOfficial It how many people does @HoTPOfficial survey & on what information? - is it just an another poll and so subject to all the limitations of polling that we know so well?

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

The Islamic regime in Iran is the one that just a few weeks ago slaughtered 32,000 protestors, and then,
when relatives came for the bodies, demanded payment for them

One of the nastiest regimes the modern world had ever known, now supported by many of the marchers