So let’s get this straight. If a mugger snatches your phone, the police will do nothing. If burglars ransack your home, the police will do nothing. If your daughter is raped by a grooming gang, the police will do nothing.
But if you write a social media post that offends someone who identifies as transgender, you’ll be abruptly set upon by five armed officers.
Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
Well now. From MEMRI TV:
Saudi writer and researcher Abdullah Bin Bijad Al-Otaibi said in an August 30, 2025 episode of Diwan Al-Mulla (Kuwait) that Hamas has committed a "heinous crime against the Palestinian people." He added that media figures who wrote in support of Hamas and called them "the resistance" are accomplices to this crime and none of them has apologized for it. Al-Otaibi said Hamas leaders, who have brought catastrophe on the Palestinians, are hiding in tunnels, failing to defend their people, and firing rockets at Israel from UN centers housing displaced people and schools in order to increase Palestinian casualties. He accused Hamas of maintaining the "most heinous" dictatorship in Gaza, torturing and killing those who oppose them, and charged that "some TV channels and pundits" are accomplices in this anti-Palestinian crime.
The nodding man on the left suggests perhaps that this is not an uncommon view in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
At the Saatchi Gallery, the Royal Photographic Society 166th edition International Photography Exhibition. Into the first gallery (it's a free exhibition) and straightaway this:
Gosh. The innocent native, born free yet struggling to escape the evil chains of Zionism. Presented as though this take is entirely undisputed. As perhaps it is in these circles.
Yes, elsewhere there's also a lot of "challenging gender norms".
Graham Linehan, the comedian arrested over gender-critical social media posts, is set to sue the Metropolitan Police for wrongful arrest and breach of his free speech rights.
The Father Ted co-creator said he was taking the action because he had been “treated like a terrorist for speaking his mind on social media”….
Linehan said: “This was a horrible glimpse of the dystopian clown show that Britain has become. The FSU will support me by providing lawyers to advise on a claim against the Met police for wrongful arrest and wrongful imprisonment in the hope that no one else is treated like a terrorist for speaking their mind on social media.”
Meanwhile…
As the row intensified Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, joined calls to change the law, saying that his officers were in an “impossible position”. He added: “Officers should not be policing toxic culture wars debates.”
This is nonsense. He's deflecting – passing the buck. It was a police decision to arrest Linehan with a show of force, just as they've been police decisions not to bother when women are threatened by violent trans activists. And just as they've been police decisions not to bother with stuff like shoplifting or threats to property any more. By all means clarify the law, but it's Rowley who should be in the dock here – as, let's hope, he will be when Linehan's wrongful arrest case comes up.
In 2022 my restaurant was smashed up w/multiple threats of death & arson, & a huge pile on of fake 1* reviews. All because @suzanne_moore & @jk_rowling came for dinner once.
No arrests made as was "not in the public interest"
Honestly thought we were passed this shit.#glinner— James Chiavarini (@JamesChiavarini) September 2, 2025
Suzanne Moore adds:
James what a friend, ally, mensch. I was so upset when this happened but he has never wavered. Trust me you will have the best time at his restaurants. Il Portico and La Palombe. I am going next week. Can't wait.
Stephen Pollard in the Spectator on the Graham Linehan affair:
What we are seeing is the congruence of two dangerous developments. First, is the idea that giving offence is something which should be banned. The government’s current move towards adopting a definition of Islamophobia is part of this, and has rightly been labelled by Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Muslim anti-prejudice group TellMAMA, as introducing a blasphemy law by the back door. Similarly, the onward march of the trans ideologues may have been stopped in its tracks by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of ‘woman’, but the ideology has already taken hold of many institutions and spaces.
Which leads to the second development – the police’s capture by this and other ‘woke’ ideologies. Linehan describes how in his police interview a police officer mentioned trans people: “I asked him what he meant by the phrase. ‘People who feel their gender is different than what was assigned at birth.’ I said: ‘Assigned at birth? Our sex isn’t assigned.’ He called it semantics, I told him he was using activist language.’
This is the nub of it. The police, supposed guardians of the law, have become players in the activists’ capture of the institutions. It is not that they are no longer concerned with crime, but that they are redefining what crime is. It is terrible that Linehan should have had to go through this. But if it wakes more of us up to what is happening in Britain, his arrest will have served our country well.
Certainly there's been a huge uproar. I might be more optimistic about this if the BBC hadn't made such an effort to feature those, like newly-elected head of the Greens Zack Polanski, who think it was right for Linehan to have been arrested:
The Greens' first policy was a mass-sterilisation programme.
David Icke, who thought the world was run by lizards, was a lead spokesman in 80s/90s.
Now it's run by a man who thinks you should be arrested if you think lesbians don't have cocks. Might be maddest of them all? https://t.co/9Gjq3FvfTg
— Fraser Myers (@FraserMyers) September 3, 2025
Also the R4 Today interview with Max Hill and Shami Chakrabarti which, as Seen in Journalism point out, was notable for its "general obeisance to the official Overton window of any controversial story" – that is, a "careful now" discussion of the free speech debate, bemoaning its toxicity, but no mention – god forbid – of the huge disparity between the police response here, when trans people are supposedly threatened, to the total lack of concern when horrific threats are made to women, and particularly gender-critical women like JK Rowling, by trans activists.
Added: after mutterings from Starmer, now it's Streeting:
Wes Streeting has suggested that the law should be changed after the arrest of the comedian Graham Linehan over gender critical social media posts, to stop police wasting their time….
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said that police should be “policing streets, not just policing tweets”. He said that it was ultimately up to the government to change the law to ensure that police do not waste their time.
Not sure about that. The police need to change – and someone needs to lose their job. This looks more like performative wibbling from the Labour front bench – seeing the furore and making the right noises before moving on to the next thing, having done absolutely nothing. At the very least the Home Secretary should be summoning the Met chief for some very strong words, and maybe the threat of dismissal. The police have lost the plot.
Added:
What @BBCr4today & their interviewees have all omitted this morning is reference to the contrast between the police treatment of Graham Linehan’s tweets & their light touch when women face violence threats, harassment & assault by trans activists. This is a big part of the story.
— Joanna Cherry KC (@joannaccherry) September 3, 2025
🚨 Malcolm Gladwell says “trans athletes have no place in the female category.”
He admits he was cowed into saying that it was ok.
He knows it’s not.
He was bullied into it and he’s ashamed that he gave in.
Good for him. Mad props. pic.twitter.com/GGm1oCiNbv
— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) September 2, 2025
Well good for him – but it's all a bit pathetic, isn't it? When it mattered he was right there cheering on the trans athletes, and now the tide is turning he says he was cowed. It doesn't say much for his intellectual integrity. Though yes, better late than never. It's not like it's an abstruse problem that requires long deliberation and expertise in human biology – hulking great men, at best mediocre in their chosen sport, putting on a wig and some lippy and charging to top spot on the podium by claiming to be women.
Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph:
Every time I think we have reached peak lunacy around the issue of “trans rights”, I am once more shocked. The news that five armed police officers were waiting at Heathrow to meet and arrest the creator of Father Ted because of three tweets has blown my mind.
Yep. It's astonishing and it's chilling.
Armed police are usually reserved for suspects who may be dangerous, not for people who tweet controversial stuff. Linehan, 57, is well known for his views on trans issues and has long been of the view that trans rights have come about to the detriment of women and children. He takes no prisoners and is often rude about predatory men, and makes derogatory comments about transwomen (biological men) who masquerade as lesbian women on dating apps.
He has paid a heavy price for his views, which is why he now lives in the States. The comedy world dumped him. His marriage broke up. This once-fêted writer of Father Ted, The IT Crowd and Black Books became persona non grata within the industry. Few stood by him, as it is compulsory in the word of the arts and media to mouth the dogmas.
“Trans women are women. Trans men are men, and non-binary is valid.” To veer from the catechism is to risk being ostracised, to have one’s livelihood take away, to become a pariah. This is what happened to him.
All of this has perhaps pushed Linehan to be extremely angry and not to hold back.
As Linehan clearly sees some trans activists as the entitled, aggressive men that they are, he refuses to compromise and returns their threats. His “punch in the balls” tweet (his joking recommendation ‘if all else fails’ should a woman find a trans-identified male is in a female-only space) is part of that. Remember we live in a culture where it appears to be OK to carry signs that say “Decapitate Terfs” amongst other threats that explicitly call for violence against women.
The police do absolutely nothing about the tsunami of explicitly violent tweets from trans activists, up to and including death threats, yet storm in with five armed officers when it's suggested that trans-identified men in women's spaces should, if all else fails, be punched in the balls. There's something rotten here. Too many Stonewall seminars? – or high-up trans activists in the force? Or, most likely, just stupid and unaware, with a deeply ingrained misogyny.
This is frankly Orwellian. He has been arrested for wrongthink. The police have outdone themselves. Either we have freedom of speech or we don’t, and freedom of speech means freedom to offend. It also means defending those you may disagree with.
There is no serious justification for this arrest.
It is an alarming authoritarian move which furthers no one rights.
I stand with Graham Linehan.
Added:
The police are only interested in tweets threatening or inciting violence against women if the ‘women’ in question have dicks. https://t.co/X4BJvYYzmj
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 2, 2025
…and he gets the full ISIS treatment.’