Met may have ditched woke policing this week but hidden loophole raises free speech fears - Peter Bleksley

Graham Linehan is a highly successful and brilliant comedy writer and show creator, who, for the past eight years, has become a very vocal campaigner on trans issues.

Just like me, he believes that if you have a penis, you are a man, and just like me and the Supreme Court, he believes that if you are born female, then you grow up to become a woman.

All pretty simple stuff really, but Mr Linehan has been hideously hounded by some obviously confused people who hold opposing views to his, and mine.

He has prominently expressed his beliefs on social media and has resolutely refused to back down despite some very unpleasant threats and abuse.

In April of this year, Mr Linehan posted on X: "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."

I remember chuckling when I first read this, not because I thought it was funny, but because I admired the front of a man who would combine a very serious issue with a clearly preposterous instruction.

In no way, shape or form did I regard it as inciting violence, nor to be illegal. Unfortunately, somebody, most probably a highly-paid senior police officer within Scotland Yard, decided that Mr Linehan should be arrested for writing this and another couple of innocuous posts.

As he arrived at Heathrow Airport on a flight from the US on September 1, he faced public humiliation by being identified in front of passengers, and was then detained by five gun-toting police officers. One can only imagine what kind of reception committee the Met would have mustered should Mr Linehan have been a wanted terrorist, or perhaps a serial killer.

Fast-forward to this week, and it was announced that Mr Linehan will not be facing any further action over his postings on X.

Of course he won’t, because he hadn’t committed any crime. His response was, quite rightly, to tell the world that he is suing The Met for wrongful arrest and detention.

I don’t blame him. This whole debacle had arisen because the Met, like so many other police services, had got itself in a dreadful tangle over investigating incidents that had been classified as so-called ‘Non Crime Hate Incidents’.

The clue should have been in the title. If something was not a crime, then what the hell were the police doing investigating such matters?

Confusing advice had been dished out to them in recent times by the lamentable College of Policing, a discredited quango that needs immediate disbanding, and clearly the nation lacked a police chief who possessed the courage to stand up and state the bleeding obvious, that the police would not investigate the hurt feelings of the easily-offended, which was the vast majority of what these ludicrous incidents were.

Almost immediately after the very welcome news about Graham Linehan, the Met Police proclaimed from on high that finally, they would no longer investigate Non-Crime Hate Incidents. My heartfelt thanks go out to whoever it was who’s been lacing the tea at New Scotland Yard with common sense pills. I hope their stash does not run out anytime soon.

But now we come to the small print bit; the Met also said, ‘These incidents will still be recorded and used as valuable pieces of intelligence to establish potential patterns of behaviour or criminality.’ So, questions about what and how they record ‘these incidents’ still remain. When that flaky and unpatriotic work colleague goes running to the police because you refuse to take down the Union Jack that is pinned to the noticeboard, will the police record your details?

When you hang your flag of St George bunting across your front door, and your fluffy neighbour registers their objections with the police, will your address enter some big-brother type database?

Time will tell, but in the meantime, does anyone know where I can pick up a reasonably priced flagpole?