The arrest of the comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport on Monday has triggered a predictable chorus of outrage. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick called it “ridiculous”. Elon Musk branded the UK a “police state”, and JK Rowling asked, “What the f*** has the UK become?” Nigel Farage announced he’ll raise the case before the US House Judiciary Committee as evidence of Britain’s slide into “authoritarian censorship”.
It’s right to scrutinise how police use their powers, but strip away the performative outrage and the story gets a lot more straightforward: a man who has spent years allegedly making increasingly inflammatory comments about a vulnerable, marginalised group faced consequences for behaviour that reportedly crossed legal lines.
