British-Irish comedian Graham Linehan, known for creating the iconic sitcom The IT Crowd, was detained by armed police at London's Heathrow Airport in what he describes as a harrowing ordeal for merely posting gender-critical jokes online. According to Linehan, five armed officers met him upon arrival, placed him under arrest, and locked him in a cell—all for tweets critical of transgender ideology.
Linehan’s alleged crimes? Social media posts including a sarcastic caption under an LGBT rally photo (“a photo you can smell”), a comment calling out male intrusions into women’s spaces as “violent and abusive acts,” and a blunt remark directed at what he called misogynistic and homophobic activists: “I hate them… F*** em.”
🚨NEW — Comedian Graham Linehan was “arrested at an airport like a terrorist, locked in a cell like a criminal” for comedic social media posts about transgenderism.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 2, 2025
Police confirmed five armed officers detained the 57-year-old over past posts on transgender issues, accusing him… pic.twitter.com/8HQk7ucgrH
The state dispatched five armed officers, detained a 57-year-old comedy writer like a national threat, and demanded he cease posting on Elon Musk’s X platform as a condition of his release. He was even taken to a hospital due to the stress of the arrest.
“In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak,” Linehan wrote, “the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet.” He added, “I am not making this up.”
Despite his longtime career in comedy, Linehan has become a leading voice in Britain and Ireland against the excesses of the transgender movement. This stance has seen him cancelled from venues, publicly attacked, and now, arrested.
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The Free Speech Union is backing Linehan, calling the arrest and bail conditions “unlawful” and vowing to fight the charges. "We will be backing him all the way," the group stated.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer insists the UK still upholds free speech. But actions speak louder than soundbites. According to The Times of London, British police made over 12,000 arrests in 2023 for online posts—about 33 arrests a day. If that’s what free speech looks like in 2025 Britain, it’s no wonder critics say the country has become a parody of liberal democracy.
Linehan didn’t mince words: “The UK has become a country that is hostile to freedom of speech, hostile to women, and far too accommodating to the demands of violent, entitled, abusive men who have turned the police into their personal goon squad.”
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