“When Did Britain Become North Korea?”

September 3rd, 2025

Via: Daily Mail:

Police were accused of a ‘totalitarian’ clampdown on free speech after the creator of Father Ted was arrested by armed officers over online comments about transgender activists.

Fury erupted at the Metropolitan Police’s treatment of TV writer Graham Linehan, who told how he was dealt with ‘like a terrorist’, held in a cell and then had to be rushed to hospital because the stress ‘nearly killed me’.

Lord Young, director of the Free Speech Union which is supporting Mr Linehan, told the Daily Mail: ‘I don’t think there’s a better illustration of just how low we’ve sunk when it comes to free speech.

‘If Graham Linehan himself had written this scene for a sitcom about the descent of Starmer’s Britain into an authoritarian banana republic, his editor would have rejected it as too implausible.

‘The overzealous policing of social media posts is turning the UK into an international laughing stock.’

Related: Labour’s Big Idea Is ID Cards for All

3 Responses to ““When Did Britain Become North Korea?””

  1. dale says:

    Good question. The last year or so has been one rapid dissent into hell for these folks. I guess they strip searched the guy after arrest. Ugly

  2. Snowman says:

    “If Graham Linehan himself had written this scene ”

    Great idea! He should write a Father Ted tv special in which Father Ted (wearing street clothes?) is the one arrested for same. It could be hilarious and educational.

  3. pookie says:

    It’s starting to happen here in NZ. I specifically joined the organization InternetNZ when the Free Speech Union NZ (FSU) asked for their members to consider joining InternetNZ as members with voting rights in order to prevent InternetNZ from continuing with their censorship proclivities. InternetNZ manages .nz domains, and the people on their board (except for the newly elected board member and former CEO of the Free Speech Union NZ Jonathan Ayling) are hell-bent on censoring .nz domains if what they deem “offensive” language is used. Their website makes it clear that their work is part of “Internet Governance”.

    They bloviate about “empowering all people” while just recently they censored comments by members who made submissions regarding the proposed changes to their founding documents at the most recent AGM. You can read about that fiasco on the 2nd half of this link:

    https://www.fsu.nz/blog/npbhs-backtracks-on-their-apology-and-internetnz-censors-harmful-comments

    If any Cryptogoner who lives in NZ wishes to join me and other Free Speech Union members in this endeavour, then I will be happy to reimburse you your 5-year membership fee. There’s not a lot of work involved — just the occasional submission, and the all-important online voting every year at the AGM. Just email me at turveydrop@proton.me with a screenshot of your joining and your banking details, and I’ll gladly reimburse you. We need a huge pro-free speech voting bloc!

    https://internetnz.nz/membership/

    “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do little.” Edmund Burke

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