A fairly good sense
A former Detective Chief Inspector at the Metropolitan Police is not impressed by recent events.
Is the Met on an inadvertent campaign to make Nigel Farage the Prime Minister? Politically he is the only winner from the arrest of the comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport on Monday, for a series of posts made on the social media platform X earlier this year.
The circumstances behind the arrest, by armed officers, are so bizarre that they almost beggar explanation. As a former Detective Chief Inspector in the Metropolitan Police I have a fairly good sense about what happened in this case – and how it could have been avoided.
By not having damn fools running the place is one way.
The three offending posts were made on the 19th and 20th April 2025. In one of the posts, Linehan wrote: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
It would appear that Trans-activists seeking to use the authorities to wage their latest sally against those in the “gender-critical” or “gender-realist” movement chose to report Linehan to the police.
Ideally at this point the Met would have closed the case as a waste of time and resources. While the posts by Linehan – who is best known for writing the television series Father Ted – are hardly his finest comedic work, it is difficult to see what about them could have led the police to conclude that they were worthy of criminal investigation.
Oh but sir, you’re forgetting that our trans siblings are the most tragic vulnerable persecuted people on earth.
Much has been made of the arresting officers being armed – the reality, as we have seen in other cases, is that airports are unique jurisdictions where the threat means that most officers do need to carry firearms. The more relevant issue is who approved the circulation of Linehan as being “wanted” on the Police National Computer, and what checks did the arresting officers make with the original investigators to ensure this was a case where an arrest was genuinely necessary? It seems unlikely that the threat posed by Linehan in that moment was so egregious that the arresting officers needed to be merely a slave to the machine and make an immediate arrest without checking with the originating officers first.
But sir it was twanzfobeea.
In this case specifically, a senior police officer with a functioning brain cell should have reviewed the investigation and ended the fiasco before it escalated to the point of Linehan being arrested as he stepped onto the tarmac at Heathrow. It is, however, an unfortunate reality that policing is a large organisation where the leadership at every level is, to say the least, of “mixed ability”.
In other words – not even one brain cell.
A thought occurs: Graham Linehan wrote “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.” And the response was “transphobia! Arrest him! He’s killing the dolls!” Add hyperbole as necessary.
What if, instead, Linehan had written “If an adult or teen male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
Well? No transphobia there, trans isn’t even mentioned once. They can scream “transphobia” all they like, but then *they’re the ones stuck explaining*, not us, and the issue only gets worse for them the more they explain. It also puts all males together, as they should be. “Trans” is a state of mind, after all, and not a state of material reality, especially with Self ID adherents wandering among us. We should not be troubled as to why the grown male is there, we should be focussed on getting him out of the space beforehand the situation escalates.
I think not saying trans would have helped here.
Arcadia, I’m not sure I can agree with you on that. In this case, trans-identified males are the issue, and to not say trans is to skirt the major issue, which is males pretending to be females. Trans-identified males would just say they are not male, they are female, so it isn’t about them. It would have little if any impact, and wouldn’t say straight out what the problem is.
I think we need to avoid the ‘be kind’ rhetoric, and also avoid hiding our real meaning behind things that won’t get us in trouble, because they won’t offend anyone. In a battle for rights, sooner or later someone is going to be offended – usually a lot of someones.
Iknklast, I do see your point. What about “If an adult or teen male (regardless of any of his claims to the contrary) is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.”
I think that covers it? Sure, it doesn’t say trans, but I do think it makes the point.
I guess I think the time for walking around saying the word is past; we need to be blunt. Of course, I tend to be blunt by nature, so that might be why I see it that way. But I think we need to state ‘trans’ and ‘male’. To just say ‘trans’ is to confuse people, many of whom are not clear on whether a trans woman is a man claiming to be a woman or a woman claiming to be a man. The whole thing needs to be clear, and I think the ‘trans-identifying male’ is probably the best way.
It might lose us friends or get us dogpiled on the internet. It might lose us a job if our employer is sensitive about things like that. If we are not prepared for those costs, then we should leave bluntness at home. If we are ready to make a difference, though, the bluntness is needed.