{"id":8516,"date":"2025-09-08T21:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/8516\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T21:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T21:54:08","slug":"the-uks-treatment-of-graham-linehan-and-kneecap-is-a-study-in-contrasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/8516\/","title":{"rendered":"The UK’s treatment of Graham Linehan and Kneecap is a study in contrasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Ello \u2018ello \u2018ello, what\u2019s all this then? A prominent member of the British government says that UK police should focus on \u201cstreets not tweets\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minister of Hypocrisy Wes Streeting sounds quite pleased with himself. How sensible his declaration makes him sound, and maybe a teeny bit funny too. Streets, tweets. Ha ha.<\/p>\n

He is referring, of course, to our very own Graham Linehan, who these days is neither sensible nor funny, despite once co-creating one of our greatest cultural icons, Father Ted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These days, we regard Linehan the way one does a distant relative of whom we were once quite fond, but who is now best known for being naked in Tesco or joining the Westboro Baptist Church.<\/p>\n

As you know, Linehan \u2014 whose extreme hatred of trans people and his inability to STFU about his extreme hatred of trans people has so far cost him his career, family, and every last shred of credibility \u2014 was arrested at Heathrow for urging, via social media, people to violently physically attack trans people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Urging anyone to violently physically attack anyone else is criminal behaviour.\n <\/p>\n

Not really, interjects the Minister of British Double Standards, who, along with his streets-not-tweets quip, says that nobody becomes a police officer in order to arrest middle-aged men for tweeting, and that British free speech laws need to be reviewed.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister, once upon a time a human rights lawyer, adds how the UK has \u201ca long history of free speech\u2026. I\u2019m very proud of that and will always defend it\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, you oppose genocide, in which case he\u2019ll call you a terrorist and have you arrested.<\/p>\n

By the time you read this, Linehan will have appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court, the very same court where his fellow citizen Liam Og O\u2019Hannaidh was recently tried for \u2018terrorism\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MoMo Chara and Moglai Bap of Kneecap performing on the main stage at Electric Picnic on Saturday 30th August 2025. Pic: Larry Cummins<\/p>\n

Unlike Linehan, in court charged with harassing a trans teenager and smashing their phone (this was before he urged his online followers to physically attack trans people), Mo Chara\u2019s \u2018terrorist\u2019 charge involved touching a flag thrown on stage at a gig.<\/p>\n

So there we have it. One Irish person is charged with \u2018terrorism\u2019 in a UK court for speaking out against violence, while another Irish person is being held up as a victim of unfree speech for speaking out in favour of violence.<\/p>\n

Confused? You\u2019re meant to be. Remember \u2014 police are there for streets, not tweets, unless you\u2019re a member of the Avon & Somerset police, whose duties include the micro-analysis of Kneecap\u2019s Glastonbury footage, or you\u2019re a member of London\u2019s Metropolitan Police, required to micro-analyse Kneecap\u2019s London concert footage. Their \u2018crime\u2019? Criticising the perpetrators and supporters of genocide, including the UK government.<\/p>\n

In contrast, calls to commit actual hate-crime \u2014 like Graham Linehan urging his half a million Twitter followers to \u201cpunch [trans people] in the balls\u201d \u2014 are met with Streeting\u2019s streets-not-tweets response.<\/p>\n

Free speech is important, says the British government, unless you\u2019re saying something we don\u2019t want to hear. Then you\u2019re a terrorist. \u201cThe further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it,\u201d<\/p>\n

George Orwell could have said five minutes ago. Streets-not-tweets? How about policing wrongs-not-songs? Attacks-not-tracks?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d list more, but I can\u2019t think of anything that rhymes with genocide apologists supporting transphobes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Ello \u2018ello \u2018ello, what\u2019s all this then? A prominent member of the British government says that UK police…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-8516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}