No, that's not the beginning of a bad joke.
But it's precisely the scenario which Graham Linehan (BAFTA winning comedy writer/producer of such sitcoms as Father Ted and Black Books) faced this week as he stepped off a plane at Heathrow Airport in London.
Five armed cops were waiting for him. Graham's alleged crime?
Three simple tweets expressing a gender critical attitude.
Dane Giraud, Free Speech Union (FSU) Council member and a comedy writer himself, told you a bit about Graham's ordeal several days ago.
It just so happens that I've been in England meeting with various international civil liberties organisations. When I heard the news of Graham's arrest I was walking in the very shadow of the Westminster parliamentary complex about to catch up with someone from FSU UK. And now I'm sitting in the same terminal at Heathrow as I write this.
Graham Linehan is a very good friend of the FSU. Many of you met him when he toured as one of our guest speakers last year and as you'd likely know his longtime campaign to challenge transgender ideology has earned him a lot of enemies. Cancelled and blacklisted from the entertainment industry for voicing "transphobic" views, most in his position would have crumbled and recanted. Not Graham. His deep moral conviction means he has refused to go silently even though his opponents have done their best to destroy his professional and personal life.
Has Graham's arrest come as a surprise?
To those who've been paying attention to the suffocating growth of censorship in liberal democracies like the UK - in all likelihood it hasn't. But this case appears to have shocked a lot of Brits. It's grabbed headlines in the UK and US.
The British PM Keir Starmer has even conceded that there are probably better things the police could be doing.... like solving Britain's burglaries, reducing the rate of knife attacks, and protecting women and girls from violence and trafficking - all problems which have stubbornly mounted while resources were diverted to policing speech.
As Allison Pearson, an English journalist who recently faced a similar ordeal points out:
"(Graham's unjust arrest) is a combination of officers not knowing how to use their discretion anymore, leadership convinced that it has to impose morals on the population, and a load of idiotic laws that need to be repealed. A disaster 30 years in the making.”
Britain is at present recording 30 arrests per day for speech-related offenses.
This, quite literally, could have been us.
Our FSU Council and staff, in the course of defending speech rights in NZ, have been targeted persistently by activists and opponents. But because the FSU in NZ got so many runs on the board in a remarkably short time through targeted, tireless advocacy and unflagging support from Kiwis like yourself, we've repeatedly seen off the threat.
Kiwis don't usually like to crow.
In some of the meetings I've attended here, however, the successful resistance story of FSU NZ is beginning to turn heads. A few are beginning to ask what exactly it will take to persuade their fellow citizens of the virtues of a culture of free speech.
One key lesson we have to share is that we will only be legitimate and effective in this cause if we are first prepared to defend the speech rights of those whose ideas we may loathe.
The more hard-bitten cynics amongst us will laugh at the suggestion Keir Starmer and his colleagues have finally flinched. Whether the change in tone is for reasons of conscience - or pure politics - it goes to show sometimes even censors recognise they've gone too far.
With so many limitations in place on old freedoms, Britain now appears to be waking up to smell the tea and crumpets.
And as I've been travelling around England, I've been witnessing a strange stirring of something I haven't seen in this part of the world in a long time - citizens no longer ashamed to speak up about certain concerns which previously were verboten in polite society.
A growing number of people aren't willing to be mocked, cancelled and even arrested. These citizens aren't waiting for politicians to promise them solutions.
They're taking the lead through personal example and the status quo long typified by apathy, resignation and inertia appears to be giving way to a widespread and well-coordinated grassroots activism.
One such symbol of this growing awareness which has sprung up everywhere over the summer in England is the flag. Union Jacks and St George's Crosses are flapping from virtually every lamp post, motorway bridge and workman's van. Roundabouts have been painted in the nation's colours. It's part of a wider protest over a range of issues on which many regular Brits feel unheard.
Critics of this popular movement maintain the flag waving is an act of white supremacy/fascism/bigotry. From the people I've met and the things I've seen and heard, the vast majority of flag wavers are interested in none of those things. They just believe that some old democratic truths have been abandoned to the country's detriment. Ironically, flags which once represented a global empire have become the emblem of the ignored in Britain.
So the question for NZ is whether many of our fellow Kiwis can recognise the calamity that might so easily have become our own story.
True freedom of speech is not merely the absence of censorship—it is the lifeblood of a thriving, resilient society. It enables connection, creativity, and human flourishing. If we choose to nurture it, we can build a culture where every voice counts and every idea has the chance to light the way forward.
If there was ever a time to reflect on what that alternate reality of censorship might have looked like in NZ, Graham Linehan's case is it.
I hope, for the sake of Graham and others like him, it also proves to be the necessary turning point for the UK.
Three simple tweets expressing a gender critical attitude.
Dane Giraud, Free Speech Union (FSU) Council member and a comedy writer himself, told you a bit about Graham's ordeal several days ago.
It just so happens that I've been in England meeting with various international civil liberties organisations. When I heard the news of Graham's arrest I was walking in the very shadow of the Westminster parliamentary complex about to catch up with someone from FSU UK. And now I'm sitting in the same terminal at Heathrow as I write this.
Graham Linehan is a very good friend of the FSU. Many of you met him when he toured as one of our guest speakers last year and as you'd likely know his longtime campaign to challenge transgender ideology has earned him a lot of enemies. Cancelled and blacklisted from the entertainment industry for voicing "transphobic" views, most in his position would have crumbled and recanted. Not Graham. His deep moral conviction means he has refused to go silently even though his opponents have done their best to destroy his professional and personal life.
Has Graham's arrest come as a surprise?
To those who've been paying attention to the suffocating growth of censorship in liberal democracies like the UK - in all likelihood it hasn't. But this case appears to have shocked a lot of Brits. It's grabbed headlines in the UK and US.
The British PM Keir Starmer has even conceded that there are probably better things the police could be doing.... like solving Britain's burglaries, reducing the rate of knife attacks, and protecting women and girls from violence and trafficking - all problems which have stubbornly mounted while resources were diverted to policing speech.
As Allison Pearson, an English journalist who recently faced a similar ordeal points out:
"(Graham's unjust arrest) is a combination of officers not knowing how to use their discretion anymore, leadership convinced that it has to impose morals on the population, and a load of idiotic laws that need to be repealed. A disaster 30 years in the making.”
Britain is at present recording 30 arrests per day for speech-related offenses.
This, quite literally, could have been us.
Our FSU Council and staff, in the course of defending speech rights in NZ, have been targeted persistently by activists and opponents. But because the FSU in NZ got so many runs on the board in a remarkably short time through targeted, tireless advocacy and unflagging support from Kiwis like yourself, we've repeatedly seen off the threat.
Kiwis don't usually like to crow.
In some of the meetings I've attended here, however, the successful resistance story of FSU NZ is beginning to turn heads. A few are beginning to ask what exactly it will take to persuade their fellow citizens of the virtues of a culture of free speech.
One key lesson we have to share is that we will only be legitimate and effective in this cause if we are first prepared to defend the speech rights of those whose ideas we may loathe.
The more hard-bitten cynics amongst us will laugh at the suggestion Keir Starmer and his colleagues have finally flinched. Whether the change in tone is for reasons of conscience - or pure politics - it goes to show sometimes even censors recognise they've gone too far.
With so many limitations in place on old freedoms, Britain now appears to be waking up to smell the tea and crumpets.
And as I've been travelling around England, I've been witnessing a strange stirring of something I haven't seen in this part of the world in a long time - citizens no longer ashamed to speak up about certain concerns which previously were verboten in polite society.
A growing number of people aren't willing to be mocked, cancelled and even arrested. These citizens aren't waiting for politicians to promise them solutions.
They're taking the lead through personal example and the status quo long typified by apathy, resignation and inertia appears to be giving way to a widespread and well-coordinated grassroots activism.
One such symbol of this growing awareness which has sprung up everywhere over the summer in England is the flag. Union Jacks and St George's Crosses are flapping from virtually every lamp post, motorway bridge and workman's van. Roundabouts have been painted in the nation's colours. It's part of a wider protest over a range of issues on which many regular Brits feel unheard.
Critics of this popular movement maintain the flag waving is an act of white supremacy/fascism/bigotry. From the people I've met and the things I've seen and heard, the vast majority of flag wavers are interested in none of those things. They just believe that some old democratic truths have been abandoned to the country's detriment. Ironically, flags which once represented a global empire have become the emblem of the ignored in Britain.
So the question for NZ is whether many of our fellow Kiwis can recognise the calamity that might so easily have become our own story.
True freedom of speech is not merely the absence of censorship—it is the lifeblood of a thriving, resilient society. It enables connection, creativity, and human flourishing. If we choose to nurture it, we can build a culture where every voice counts and every idea has the chance to light the way forward.
If there was ever a time to reflect on what that alternate reality of censorship might have looked like in NZ, Graham Linehan's case is it.
I hope, for the sake of Graham and others like him, it also proves to be the necessary turning point for the UK.
Nick Hanne is the Education Partnerships Manager at the Free Speech Union. This article was sourced HERE
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