Michael Corcoran

Whisper it quietly but Britain might be Great again

You want the NATO allies to join you in a war you started without ever consulting these allies about the war or explaining your war aims. We’re meant just to meekly fall in line. You recently supported a US invasion of a NATO ally (Denmark/Greenland) but now you want these same allies to join your war. Your president disparaged and misrepresented the role of NATO allies in Afghanistan. But now you want them to join with you again in a war of your making. You went to war with Iran without a thought of how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and without involving your allies in the matter. But now you want the NATO allies to bail you out, even though there’s still no plan for Hormuz. You want the NATO allies to join you in a war in which you still cannot articulate the endgame. Or what victory would look like. You went to war thinking the Iranian regime would quickly topple, that Tehran would not attack the Gulf States or close Hormuz. Why would we align with such Epic Stupidity? You and other know-nothing blowhards started this war all on your own. You can finish it on your own. If you’re able to …

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC. May God bless America.

There is a story in The Yorkshire Post tomorrow that ought to represent a warning: one about humour, sensitivities and free speech. In a room of 400 people, where 399 laugh, why does one person get to claim offence and have cancelled someone who does nothing but infinite good?

We're a week away from the most painful Budget in history thanks largely to the eye-watering cost of lockdown. Yet Baroness Hallett says next time the Government must be ready to go harder and faster. This is insanity. dailysceptic.org/2025/11/22/tha…

Just stop, Ed. We all know by now that this is nonsense. Gas has returned to normal levels for some time. The price keeps increasing because of the cost of renewables.

Average time to answer a call for HMRC’s Self Assessment helpline in the latest year? 23:40. And for the Universal Credit helpline? 2.15. I've been dragging these numbers out of departments, and the stats certainly tell their own story about modern Britain's warped priorities. It's a piss-take, to be frank. Try running a business and at the same time attempting to contact HMRC? They just expect we can down tools for 30 minutes to sit on hold? No. Not possible. It's ludicrous. Working men and women treated like dirt, again. I've formally asked the Chancellor to implement a full review of HMRC helplines, putting customer service at the very top of the agenda. Because these stats just sum the country up.

Are you completely fucking insane? If you commit a serious crime in a country where you’re not a citizen *of course* you should be deported.

🚨 NEW: Rachel Reeves is considering a 2p rise in Income Tax but a 2p cut in National Insurance in the Budget Around 30 million workers who pay both taxes would pay the same amount, but pensioners and landlords - who don’t pay NI - would be hit [@Telegraph]

Today I voted yes to a ten-minute rule motion which would bring forward a Bill to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Contrary to some of the rhetoric that surrounds this debate, this is not a vote for fewer rights or weaker protections under the law, it is a vote to put power back into the hands of the British people and their Parliament. A Government is elected on its manifesto, but if governments cannot deliver on their promises because of the ECHR, then we have reached an impasse - major infrastructure projects spend decades tied up in red tape, public services and social housing cannot be for British citizens first, veterans face endless prosecutions over historic allegations. Other mature democracies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand have never needed the ECHR to ensure that their political systems function effectively, their rights are respected, and their parliaments remain sovereign. This country has a centuries-old common law tradition of liberty under the law that is the envy of the world, exiting the ECHR is about stating our own belief in the highest standards of human rights, while regaining control of the operation of our own laws.

Rupert Lowe will say things that almost no other politician has the balls to say, despite those things being completely obvious truisms that have overwhelming public support. It’s a genuinely bizarre political phenomenon.

@British_Airways shame on you, the massive queues at Manchester Airport and no staff with only 3 desks open is a disgrace.

Today we learned that 1.9m foreign citizens are claiming UK benefits, a number which climbs to 3.4m when you include those born abroad. Can we dispense with the fiction - still peddled by the Left - that immigration represents an economic miracle that makes us all better off.

Bonkers. I think he actually believes it. So scary. Industry dying. Nobody can make anything here with these energy costs.

The Government borrowed £20bn in September just to cover day-to-day costs. The solution isn't to tax successful people even more. They'll just leave, taking their tax with them. It's to spend less, and let people get on with building companies, creating jobs, and making money.

Apprenticeships. I love them. We’ve developed hundreds and hundreds through our companies, giving youngsters the skills they need to build a rewarding and sustainable career. We’ve sold an entire generation a foul lie, that if you don’t go to university, you’ve somehow failed - it is total bloody guff. For most young people, university has become a route to nowhere. You leave home, rack up £50,000 of debt, and get handed a degree that means very little in the real world. Then you move back in with your parents and start applying for the same jobs you could’ve done at 18. Yes, you’ve got pissed in some small city for three years. You can do that whilst training to be a plumber too, just without the debt and the pointless coursework. If you’re not sure what you want to do with your life, do NOT go to university. Learn a skill. The country doesn’t need more graduates. It needs electricians, builders, plumbers and the rest. Of course for some, university is the right path, but that does not reflect the sheer volume of students currently going to university. We need drastically fewer universities, and drastically fewer university students. We’ve built a system that’s forgotten how to make or fix anything. For most, higher education is just to delay starting adult life. It’s good for universities, good for administrators - not so good for the kids paying the bill for the rest of their lives. The debt is eye-watering. Most will never pay it off, and only shave down the interest payment every month. It’s just another tax, one which will eat into your earnings forever. Entirely unnecessary. To what, pay for a few nights out in your early 20s? Is that worth a lifetime of debt? I think not. Apprenticeships build confidence, discipline and real-world ability. You learn a trade, earn while you learn, and by your early twenties you’re already years ahead of your peers at university. No debt. Just skills, which will last you forever. Work for someone for a while, develop your skills, then look to start your own business. If you dedicate yourself, the demand will always be there. AI won't replace you, not for several decades at least... Work on your time. Run your own business. Be your own boss. Make something. Build something. Do something. If that sounds appealing, have a serious think about an apprenticeship. I would argue we need to be giving kids the opportunity to learn and develop trades even earlier in school. Why not? Let’s make it as easy as possible for boys and girls not so good with the textbooks to build their skills through a different avenue. Britain should be proud to make, fix and build again. That means valuing tradesmen and women every bit as much as graduates, more I would argue. Let’s start building an economy that actually does something. My advice to youngsters reading this? Apprenticeships. Consider it.

I sit in Parliament listening to these ministers, and it’s all just so depressing - the vast majority of them have never run a business, and it SHOWS. You would not believe how bad it is. They think ‘work’ means turning up to an office between 9 and 5, answering a few emails, and going home at the end of the day. Nice lunch break, few coffees away from the desk, probably a smoking break or several. It doesn’t - not for the millions of men and women who actually create the wealth that funds the state. Running a small business isn’t a job. It’s a way of life. It is life. It’s 24/7/365. It’s relentless. You are the accountant, HR department, compliance officer, cleaner, marketer, and customer service team - all in one. There’s no sick pay, no safety net, and no taxpayer-funded pension waiting for you. Holiday? Good luck. If you do manage to get away, it’s checking the phone all day, every day. Wife/husband obviously getting pissed off. We’ve all been there... It’s all on you. Every invoice chased, every tax deadline met, every bit of red tape navigated is on you. And if you make one mistake, one error, one small slip-up, the state comes after you - in a relentlessly efficient manner that is never afforded to us when we ask questions of it. Most MPs have no idea what that feels like. They just don’t. We’re going to see more of this in the budget I’m sure. More hurt. More pain. More tax. They don’t get it. They don’t understand that when a small business owner gets hit with another tax, it’s not absorbed by a ‘budget’ - it’s taken straight out of their family’s pocket. There is no ‘deficit’ in the business world - that’s called going bust. And they certainly don’t understand what real risk looks like. Politicians can vote through a policy on Monday and forget it by Tuesday - a small business owner lives with the consequences of that policy for years, decades. The MP monthly salary is safe. It always has been. In the public sector before, and in the public sector after - if not that, some charity/NGO funded entirely by the public sector. GET A REAL JOB. If MPs actually spent a week running a small firm - paying suppliers, tackling VAT, navigating health and safety law, sorting out HR issues, chasing clients for payment, trying to expand while staying compliant with everything from GDPR to local planning regulations - they’d legislate very differently. I can promise you that. They’d realise that most of Britain’s problems could be solved by the state doing less, not more. Cutting tax. Simplifying regulation. Slashing back the HRification of the country. Trusting people who actually produce things to get on with it. Instead, we have a political class that talks endlessly about ‘growth’ while brutally punishing the only people capable of delivering it - especially going after the family businesses/farms, which is a particularly spiteful policy decision. Small business owners are people who work harder than almost anyone in Parliament could imagine - and who are treated worse for it. Britain’s small businesses don’t succeed because of politicians, they survive in spite of them.

If your plan is to tell the British people they should shut up and keep paying for low-skill workers from the third world, £10 billion a year on welfare + another £6 billion a year subsidising social housing for foreign nationals then get ready for a massive Reform majority

This is not a free country, this is authoritarianism, and it is bonkers to me that anyone is still pretending things are OK in the UK.

Britain is headed for calamity. Our economic institutions have failed. A Trump like revolution is needed. My interview with @WilfredFrost