F*ck Censorship!
Father Ted creator Graham Linehan is reportedly considering suing London’s Metropolitan Police after he was arrested this week by “armed police” over tweets criticising transgenderism.
The left-wing government and the police appear to be panicking over the fierce backlash sparked by the arrest of Graham Linehan, as the celebrated Irish comedy writer landed at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday.
More below the fold.
Protestors have stormed the Holiday Inn at Heathrow where asylum seekers are being housed.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 31, 2025
They’ve surrounded the building, and the air is shaking with one chant:
“SEND THEM BACK. SEND THEM BACK. SEND THEM BACK.”
This is what happens when a government ignores its people,… pic.twitter.com/vAlgioNrtW
Europe is not European anymore.
— Barkin • ברקין • Баркин • 巴尔金 (@B2RKN) August 31, 2025
This must end, and Europe must shine with its own real European people again. pic.twitter.com/TcJysCKEjE
Per his account of the ordeal, the arrest came as a result of three posts on X concerning transgenderism, including one in which Linehan joked about biological males in female bathrooms: “Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
According to the Daily Mail, Linehan’s lawyers are actively considering a lawsuit against the Met for unlawful arrest, violations of his free speech by imposing a ban on him using X as a bail condition, and for defamation over accusing him of “inciting violence” over posts which the comedy writer maintains were jokes.
“This was a horrible glimpse of the dystopian clown show that Britain has become,” Linehan said.
“The FSU [Free Speech Union] 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,” he added.
The arrest of the Bafta award-winning writer, which has sent shockwaves throughout the British political system, has seen both the government and police appear to admit that speech restrictions have gone too far in the UK.
Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley said on Wednesday that his officers should not be policing “toxic culture wars” and vowed to introduce a “more stringent triaging process” so that the force only intervenes in the most serious cases. Sir Mark went on to call on the government to “clarify” speech-restricting laws.
Nevertheless, the Met chief defended the arrest of Linehan, saying that his officers had “reasonable grounds to believe an offence had been committed under the Public Order Act”.
Meanwhile, the leftist Labour government appears to agree that censorship has gone too far, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying after Linehan’s arrest that the cabinet will “look at” reforming laws surrounding online speech, the BBC reported.
He added that the heavy focus on policing tweets has “diluted the focus and priorities of the public”, adding “that’s obviously something we need to look at”. According to TheTimes of London, British police made over 12,000 arrests in 2023 over offensive online posts, or 33 per day.
The arrest of the IT Crowd writer has led many to criticise the lack of free speech in Britain, including former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who said on Tuesday: “This constant attempt to silence Britons and suppress information is worthy of a totalitarian state. The counter-revolution can’t come soon enough.”
Current Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch added: “Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch was critical of the arrest, saying: “Sending five officers to arrest a man for a tweet isn’t policing, it’s politics. Under Labour, we routinely see burglary, knife crime and assaults go unsolved, while resources are wasted on thought-policing.”
However, not everyone was on the side of Linehan, with the leader of the leftist-progressive Green Party, Zack Polanski, saying that the sitcom writer’s posts were “totally unacceptable” and that the arrest appeared to him as “proportionate”.
