TRIGGERnometry - Graham Linehan: Arrested for Trans Tweets

Episode Date: November 30, 2025

Graham Linehan is an Irish comedy writer best known for creating Father Ted, Black Books, and The IT Crowd. | Cape: America's privacy-first mobile carrier. Click https://cape.co/trigger - Promo Code - TRIGGER33 for 33% off Triggernometry is proudly independent. Thanks to the sponsors below for making that possible: - Take Hillsdale College’s online courses for free at https://hillsdale.edu/trigger - Qualia Senolytic. Go to https://Qualialife.com/TRIG for up to 50% off AND use code TRIG at checkout for an additional 15% off. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Shop Merch here - https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 - Introduction 10:54 - Were You Worried About The Arrest? 16:26 - Two-Tier Policing 20:26 - Gender Ideology Isn't As Dead As You Think 26:29 - Will The Father Ted Musical Ever See The Light Of Day? 36:56 - The Cowardice Of The People In The Arts 46:43 - Is There A Cure For This Level Of Derangement? 54:57 - Can Britain Recover From This? 01:01:34 - America Feels Very Different To The UK 01:05:22 - What's The One Thing We're Not Talking About That We Really Should Be? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last time we spoke, I got a message from you saying, I've just been arrested at Heathrow Airport. Oh, yeah. The entire thing was to get me into a cell for 10 hours. You know, we always say that in this, that the punishment is the process. I was brought to the hospital. I realized, oh, they're scared I'm going to die in custody.

The first time the police bothered me was on the orders of a guy who's a convicted sex offender. It's a decade of harassment. It's like been an attack on our ability to recognise reality itself. In some ways, we're at the most dangerous period. You know, I think Charlie Kirk getting shot is an example of this, you know.

I don't think we're going to be able to get rid of it quite as easily. If you look at the cast report, they're still trying to experiment with puberty blockers on kids. Today's episode is supported by Hillsdale College. Explore history, politics, literature and more all for free at hillstale.edu slash trigger.

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Graham Linnon? Hello. Our favorite thought criminal, fresh from all sorts of shenanigans. Welcome back to trigonometry. Thank you. Thanks for bringing me back. Last time we spoke, I got a message from you saying, I've just been arrested at Heathrow Airport. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And it became this horrifically massive story about you basically did some tweets. Yeah, three tweets. I don't know whether I need to go through them all again, but they were all. all fairly standard angry tweets at, you know, the continuing insanity of the situation. You know, men being able to enter women's spaces without being challenged. So it was just stuff about that, you know. And unfortunately, we were going through a spate of malicious reporting by a guy named Lindsay Watson, who was an ex-policeman who was fired for sending something like 1,000

500 nasty messages to Harry Miller, calling him a paedophile and a Nazi and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, he just started making full use of two things. The insane non-clime hate incidents and the fact that anyone who makes a complaint is automatically a victim as far as the police are concerned. And the second thing is, what was the second thing? I was going to say, the second thing, oh shit, he took advantage of something else and has just gone out of my head. Oh, yes, the second thing he took advantage of was just the police's terror of being on the wrong side of this, which they still have, even though they are on the wrong side of it. They just don't realize it, you know.

And he took advantage of that, you know, suggested he would bring a judicial review if they didn't answer his complaints. And apparently police are terrified of judicial reviews. Well, thankfully, those, that investigation has now been stopped. And in fact, as a result of that, as a result of this incident, the police have said they're no longer going to investigate non-crime hate incidents. Yes. Whether that's good or not, I don't know, because investigating them isn't really the problem. I don't think they ever investigated.

They just sat on your record. You know, they, the problem is. the recording of them. So you may have one, both of you may have one, you may not know, until you know, the podcasting doesn't work out and you're trying to get a job somewhere, yeah. You know, these are hidden deep in your records. It's probably the reason that when I, when I was invited to a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference, the police refused me accreditation, you know, so we had to get the conservatives to overrule them. You You know, it's impossible to know what is and isn't on your record, you know.

So come back to the incident with me because it made international headlines, rightly so in my opinion, because you were arrested by five officers at Heathrow Airport. Yeah. What was that like? Well, it was, I didn't get angry until they escorted, until they actually told me I was under arrest. That's when I got really angry because it was just like, the first, The first time the police bothered me was on the orders of a guy who's a convicted sex offender and serial fraudster. And they called about eight years ago when I was still married and I still had something

of a career. And this terrified my wife, got reported in The Guardian in a gleeful way that I've been harassing trans people. This fucking bloke was built like a brick shithouse as well. And then it just continued, you know, I got, I got visited by the police on the orders of a disgraced doctor who's now doing gender surgeries in Canada. An actor called the police and got them to come to my door. And this was terrifying to my wife, you know, because like the person who lived at our house before us was a, was a little bit of a wronging. And the police were often coming to the door looking for him.

So that used to scare my wife. But then the next thing, they're coming to the door and actually are looking for him. me. So it was, you know, it's a decade of harassment, really, at the hands of not just the cops, but these trans activists who are pulling their strings. And yeah, we're suing them now. And I'm hoping that we can take into account the previous harassment, not just this most recent example. But, you know, yeah, it wasn't pleasant. I was, it was funny, though, you know, Britain, the UK has such a bad reputation now for freedom of speech. The first thing that all these Arizonians saw when they landed in London was a comedian being arrested, you know, or a comedy writer being

arrested. So sorry, people keep calling me a comedian and it's sticking. Even in your head. Yeah. So it was, it was, you know, surreal and and also, you know, the nature of it was very clear. The, I think that the, the, The entire thing was to get me into a cell for 10 hours, to make me think about what a bad boy I've been. I think that's what the aim of it was. You know, we always say that in this, that the punishment is the process. And yeah, they just wanted to put me in sort of like a version of detention for adults, you know.

So I could sit there and stew and not have my phone and, you know, it's clever, clever method, you know, because you do start getting a little bit itchy without without anything to distract yourself. There's a little library of books they've left behind in the cell. You can choose one of them, but I was too angry to read or do anything else. I was just wandering around myself trying to memorize everything so I could write about it, you know. So yeah, it was, it was and you know, I was very, very angry, but if I'd known what a

story it would become, oh my God, I would have bought them all a drink, you know. Because like, I've been, as you know, for years I've been trying to break out of the little, um, whatever bubble I was in that meant I just could not, people could insult me on TV shows. They're still doing this. Question time did it recently. Uh, the Today program did it recently. Um, they never speak to me, you know, they never actually, uh, address what, what problem they have with, uh, my stance.

Um, they just assume it's, it's terrible and and keep insulting me. So finally, I've been able to break out of that bubble and appear on things like Rogan and your own interview was very good for me. And it just means that, yeah, what's so strange about this, about this debate is that the terms that trans actress used to fight it or to fight it on, those terms

are shared by old media. They're never contradicted. They're never, the things that women are arguing for are very, very simple and very, no one could argue against them. So they have to be sort of reframed. So, for instance, you know, it's not men. It's not trans women in women's toilets that women are worried about. It's men in women's toilets.

And trans women muddies the issue, the word, because people don't really understand what it means. A lot of people think that trans-women means trans-identified women. A lot of people think that trans-identified women. A lot of people thinks that trans-man means trans-identified males. And it's like, no, no, it's the opposite. Which is another reason that people are frightened to address this issue because the language is kept so muddy and obscure. And kind of obscurantism is a device they use.

That people aren't steady on their feet when they're talking about it. But all you can do is just keep making the arguments and hope that people, I've noticed online there's a lot more support, people are much more confident people know what's happening now it was confusing at to start because you would see a woman with beard and you go oh i guess there must be such a thing as trans people who are in the wrong body and that briefly crosses your mind but then you look into it and you go no hang on a sec this is just bearded lady at fair at fairgrounds it's just the effect of testosterone is changing the way their body works you know their endocrine system um so so so

So like all this stuff that seem magical and probably does still seem magical to a lot of young people who, you know, don't like the hand of cards they've been dealt in how they look or whatever. But it's not magical at all, it's just the effects of cross-sex hormones, you know. The effects that they don't know about, the ones beyond the beard and all that stuff, is, you know, things like four times higher heart attack chance for women, higher chance for of getting multiple sclerosis if you're a man, you know, which is, which is far worse on men than it is on women. You know, it's a terrible disease, but it really,

it's harder to deal with if you're male. And no one's told these people, you know? And they've all just got to find out about it in the future, you know? And it's still shock it to me that's been allowed to go on so long. Well, you've been making these arguments for a long time, and I just want to come back to you being arrested, because I think it's hard to imagine for most people being arrested for something you tweeted or for something you said online. And you said you got angry, which I totally understand. But were you also worried? Did you think I'm going to get done here? I'm going to go to prison?

Not for a second. No. It was so immediately obvious that this was like one of the tweets said, I hate them, misogynists and homophobes, right? So I'm making it clear that I don't like them because they are misogynists. and they are anti-gay, you know? So how is that a crime on any level? You know, being against misogyny and homophobia. So it was just absurd. And then when they tried to impose the bail conditions that I wasn't allowed to contact the victim, when there was no victim,

the whole thing from the start was just comical. The only thing that it kind of was frustrating about it, and even this, they probably helped me in the end, was, was, was, getting the blood pressure noted as 200 because that is apparently crazy high I had no idea and I think the reason that when they did release me it was quite quickly I was brought to the hospital and I got all my devices a few minutes you know about an hour after that and I realized oh they're scared I'm gonna die in

custody which would be a brilliant deadline you know so they let me go and yeah apart from the inconvenience it was actually all told a good experience because, you know, I got to see what the arrest procedure is like first-hand. I got to get a kind of journalistic view of everything, how it all works out. It was added to that was this kind of surreality of the policeman kind of trying to suppress smiles because they were delighted that, you know,

the father Ted Rider was there, you know. So it was... Well, I was going to ask you about that because one of the... I don't know. I don't know. But I do not imagine that the ordinary Bobby on the Beat in Britain or in your case, a police officer assigned to an airport, which means they're armed. So there's a high level of responsibility.

I don't imagine you sign up for the arms response team or an airport armed team in order to arrest comedy writers for jokes, right? Did you get the sense that the people who arrested you were enthusiastic about it? Were they reluctant to do it? You know, what was the... They were cheerful. They were oddly cheerful. I think the whole kind of mood seemed to be, well, here we all are.

Let's just go through it, you know, we have to, so let's do it, you know. Were they apologetic about doing it? Somewhat in their attitude. You know, like, but it was just. I quickly realized that me being angry with them or even saying, you know, whatever arguments I have to defend myself is meaningless because they're just doing their job. You know, they've been told that I'm this or that and they have to respond to it. But yeah, I didn't think they were enthusiastic about it. I'd say all of those guys I met would rather be on the street, you know, jumping over car bonnet huds and nabbing bad guys, you know.

but I don't think any of them signed up to arrest the father, write your father's head, you know. If you're a trigonometry fan, you probably think before taking things at face value. So why trust a mobile carrier that makes billions selling your data behind your back? That answer is Cape, a premium mobile carrier built from the ground up to protect your privacy.

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you know, as politicians just keep turning heat up and up and up and up. I just feel that police are entering into, possibly entering into a stage where they're going to be used to control the people who are noticing what politicians don't want them to notice. Because it's fascinating you say that, because, look, we have the conversation all the time about two-tier policing. And, you know, essentially, two-tier policing means police treat one group very differently to the way that they treat another group, even though the crimes they commit may be the same.

But you look at the way you're treated, and then you look at, for instance, Zara Solana saying to people, we've got to fight the fascist in the streets, which to me is an incitement to violence, or Ricky Jones making a throat-slitting gesture. you know, when, you know, you go, these things are not the same. You make three jokes and you get met by police in Heathrow Airport and put in a police cell. You go, this is, the way that we're dealing with this is completely biased. I mean, we have to be honest.

Sure, absolutely. I mean, you know, it is the, what you might call the dinner party ethics, you know, of the left, you know, everything that the dinner parties, involving, I don't know, TV executives and theatre producers and so on, you know. There's been a sort of agreement not to talk about certain things. And there's a kind of widely held agreement amongst all these people that they have the correct opinions, that their opinions are the right opinions. So that when Zara Sultanah comes out that says something like that or says something like

from the river to the sea, which is a genocidal statement. Um, nothing happens, you know, but, but that's because, you know, they're on the correct side of things, the correct side of things. And why is it that, you know, you've become this figure because people go to me, oh, Graham, and super controversial. And like, I know you and, I mean, you could do the odd edgy tweet, but nothing compared to some people. Yeah. And you're in this position. It's, it's weird, isn't it?

I think one thing that's happened is, and that happens, is that we are somehow blamed for the things our opponents do. So when our opponents, you know, are smashing in windows of the Philea conference or abusing women going in to it, we're somehow seen as being part of that, even though... Look what you made them do. Maybe something along those lines. those lines or just the fact that it's their inattention means they don't really they don't look at it directly they don't really know what's happening and so I remember once a friend of mine would just refuse to talk to me about

it and they said something like oh that that that bloke who's asking women to wax his balls remember this yeah Jessica Yanef Jessica Yanef beautiful lady yeah I mean for people who don't know Yanev was a trans identified bloke who went up to a bunch of different beauticians wherever I can't remember where he lives Canada wasn't it yeah Canada yeah and and asked them all to wax his testicles and then when they refused because they only did women he sued them and he and he took a lot of these women's businesses away you know even though a lot of the the cases didn't work it didn't matter he still had had that effect but I remember this this friend of

mine who was a woman going like that about it and I wanted to say I'm not asking people to wax my ball I'm trying to stop these people from doing that you know and but I don't think those I think it's just even addressing it is is for a lot of people middle-class people it's like touching a third rail and they know that if they do touch that third rail they won't just lose opportunities they'll lose entire social networks. And this is more, I think, punishing to women than it is to men. But see, this is what I find very odd about the fact that you did end up being arrested in this way, because I think the horse has bolted. Yeah. I think the horse bolted when the cast

report came out, when West Streeting in Britain said we're not doing puberty blockers on the NHS, when President Trump was elected in this country in America where we said, today, you kind of go, you lost. Yeah, sure. So the argument on that issue, you're making the arguments that you've been making for many years. And I'm sort of no offense to you personally, a little bit bored, because I'm like, sure. We know.

Like everybody knows now. It was always so obvious. You know, you were just, you know, telling people, of course, sport won't be fair if men can play it. And it is. And then we had a boxer, fight women, and you just go, look at the fucking people. Anyway, my point being, like, the horse is bolted. So why they would do that once the whole thing is already done? That's what doesn't make any sense.

Well, the thing is I would actually, I'm a little bit more pessimistic about it. Because like, if you look at the Cass report, they're still trying to do experimental, they're trying to experiment with puberty blockers on kids for a period of time. And I think Cass, I'm not sure Cass is as against that as she should be. you know um the boxer who was at the Olympics not imman kellif but the other one he's just recently knocked out a woman in the ring so these things are still going on and they still need to be fought a Brazilian woman who was um well you know i think she had to seek asylum for uh because she's she misgendered someone she just just been you know found out that that's not going to happen and now another case

has been open jrem i'm not dismissing any of that i'm not saying the entire battle every single element of every single issue of this battle has been won. What I'm saying is saying that trans people, saying that male people should not be in female bathrooms, I don't think it is any longer a controversial statement. No. It was at one point, and it now no longer is, and yet that is exactly what you were arrested for.

So what was that about? As I say, I just think that it's not quite as dead as you think it is. It's not quite as... You think they're still trying to keep the lid on it? Yeah, yeah. I think that I mean one of the things I've discovered from fighting these fighting trans activists is that they are they're endlessly vindictive and because a lot of them are narcissists they they simply won't stop until they feel they've destroyed you adequately you know they

it's like a constant constant war of attrition so whenever you hurt them they have to hurt you a million times harder back. And, you know, they won't stop. In fact, in some ways, we're at the most dangerous period. You know, I think Charlie Kirk getting shot is an example of this, you know. They are losing, I agree. A lot of the things that they made unsayable, people are realizing, oh, hang on a sec, they're not unsayable at all.

These are just common sense. And they don't like it, you know. But there are things, there's good things that are changing. I see that Morgan Ogre, or whatever his name is, who's another Canadian trans-identified man, is debating Mia Hughes, who wrote the W-Path files. So that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. He's still sending her abuse online before the interview

and calling her a bigot and so on, but at least it's happening. So I don't know, I think this is like a very strong weed that's been strangling institutions, and, you know, industries across the UK for a decade, I don't think it's gonna be, I don't think we're gonna be able to get rid of it quite as easily, you know, it's just little things. People don't even realize they're doing them.

When the policeman interviewed me at my, at my, when I was arrested at Heathrow, I had that great pleasure of, he would say to me, you know, he'd asked me a question about trans people. And I'd say, what was sorry, what is it, trans person and he said it's someone who's gender and I said sorry what is gender you know and he was in knots immediately and he actually said gender assigned at birth which is pure activist language you know and I'm sure that a lot of people say that without even realizing

they're saying it you know so it's it's not it's not just it's not been in just an attack on the institutions, it's been an attack on our ability to see a glass of water and say, this is a glass of water, you know? It's like been an attack on our ability to recognize reality itself. And that was another reason why I was so, you know, why I felt so strongly about it, because as a writer, I need things to be stable so I can write about them, especially comedy, you know, because you need the stability so you can upset it and create instability. But if you start off with an instable world, then how do you make fun of that? You know? I often say that you could not do a comedy about this because you could possibly do a comedy about this if you only use true

stories and you assured people that these are actually true stories. Because the things we been fighting, the things we've seen are so, you know, completely absurd that if I just was genuinely trying to record it in a fictional story, no one would buy it. No one would buy it. And it's had a very real world impact on your life. Like, for instance, I love the theatre, I love the arts. The arts has been completely corrupted by this. I was talking to an actress the other day and she said that if she misgendered someone three times in the rehearsal period or when she's in the play and it could be an accidental thing simply getting someone's pronouns wrong you're automatically fired and reported to your agent what that's insane and this is in the

west end in london this is in literally the place the best place in the world for theatre yeah and then it makes me think about the fact that you created father ted the musical yeah Which is, to be honest with you, is a license to print money for everyone involved. It's got a huge fan base. I wanted to go and see it. Yeah. And then it's, will it ever see the light of day? I don't know.

I mean, you know, they've, by treating me the way they did, they've kind of burnt a lot of bridges with me. So that's part of the problem. By treat, by the day you said treating you the way they did. Let's deal in specific scrum so people can understand. Well, you know, I basically brought the musical to them. I developed it, wrote it with Arthur and Neil Hannan, and, you know, put three years of work into it, thought about it very carefully, tried to make it,

wrote it in such a way that it gave a sort of ending to Ted's story that I felt was worthy of Dermott and was like a little salute to Dermott and a thank you to Dermott. But still creating a new kind of, a story that amateur groups could perform. That was one of my main things. I wanted amateur, I wanted to create a new Ted and Dougal so that amateur theatre groups could look at it and go,

oh yeah, so you just, it doesn't have to be an impression. It can be just, you know, you're trying to sum up the figure of a guy who doesn't, it was not as bright as he thinks he is, and a guy who's incredibly, incredibly dumb. You know, and I don't know, we just, we just, it was ready. It was, it was, the songs were written, it was ready, it was on its feet. They tried to, I should have known something was up when they tried to make, like you know the character in the show who goes, I hear you're a racist now, Foggling. Yeah. Well, in the, in the last

dry run we had, a black guy said that. And I remember thinking, oh shit, are they going to try and make, are they going to try and make this a multiracial cast on Craggy Island? Which wouldn't have made sense. Yeah. Like there's a whole episode about how, the Chinatown on Craggy Island is a ridiculous concept, you know. So it wouldn't have made any sense. And God love him, the actor was just as embarrassed as we were, you know. But I could sense that they were already beginning to think, how can we make this a multiracial cast.

They did it to Tom Stopbard as well. And Sonia Friedman actually said to me at one point, he doesn't think there should be a black cast in the ghetto, you know? this is like the Warsaw ghetto I think his last one was made up and and he's and she said but and she said but he's having them you know and it's like well and it's just ridiculous yeah yeah yeah but this is the world they live in it is entirely about virtue signaling it's no longer about about the art or the or the or the truth or the truth or the audience you know it's definitely not about the audience and as a result the theatre is dying in in in in in in London you know and and the

father ted musical would have given it a huge shot in the arm but unfortunately we're now taking orders from the ice cream sellers and the uh and the staff who all think they're non-binary you know and that's what did for it in the end you know so when you say what did for it what actually happened so from what i can hear it would the run-through was great the songs were written the I was ready to go, everything was there, you were in final rehearsals, you had your black actor, so you had your diversity on your rural Irish island. Everything, every box was ticked. Yeah.

What happened? Me? They just didn't want, they wanted me gone. I got a meeting. I wrote a letter to them. Oh, they offered you to buy you out, didn't they? Yes. Yes, they offered me 200 grand to walk away. And I was considering it at first and even started writing letters.

or an explanation as to why I was backing away and so on, you know. But it was all a con. Jimmy was just trying to calm them, you know, because I would have still received royalties. And, you know, he was just trying to trick everybody, really. But I said, okay, well, you know, I just want to come along to the occasional rehearsal to just see that it's going the right way,

that it's not taking on any jokes that don't work. or too cheap or something like this. And they said, no, we want a clean break, you know. And this was after I'd almost single-handedly done this thing, you know. So, you know, I just, I think that that was the final straw. Because I don't want to be arrogant, but like, but I do know that if I hadn't been there, then, you know, it wouldn't be as good, you know?

I've always been like a micromanager on DETA's, especially when it comes to jokes. You know what jokes are like. They have to be a certain way. Yeah. Certain, if you've been doing stand up, you know that you have to say the words in this order, because if you get the order even slightly wrong,

you screw it up. So I didn't trust anyone there to know this, you know, because I've seen the rest of Patrick's programming. So, you know, I just didn't want to go, I didn't want to, I knew that if I didn't have anything to do with it, then it wouldn't be as good. And I wouldn't be press. out of it. And one of the things I'm dead certain of is that if I'm involved in something,

it's going to be good, you know? Well, your track record, better say. And this is the other thing. Like, you know, you're not going to say this yourself because you're a modest guy, but you are a generational talent in, in, I always have to find a weird way of saying it because you're Irish. I always say, you know, British, Irish. You know what I mean. Yeah. But, you know, the things you've created are things that have entertained literally millions of people. and millions of people, and you've had your opinions. You probably had them earlier than other people,

and therefore took more of the arrows and more of the brunt. But it's just a travesty. It's an absolute travesty. At a moment when so much feels uncertain and confused, it's worth remembering that the first Americans were searching for the same things, truth, clarity, and purpose. Hillsdale College's new free documentary series, colonial America from wilderness to civilization tells that story.

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They're thoughtful, beautifully made and provide a world-class education completely free. So if you want to understand how American freedom began and why those lessons still matter today, this is the series to watch. Go to Hillsdale.edu slash trigger to a role for free. That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger and learn how America's story really began. Well, you know, as I say, I mean, it was a roundabout way, but it got me here eventually. And it's been nice being here, knowing that I won't get arrested any second, has meant that I can really relax and start thinking about writing again. Because I'm always learning, I'm always learning on the job.

And, you know, Rob just gave me the opportunity to write this film idea, which I really like. Rob Schneider, yeah. Former guest to us. Yes. And, you know, I just rattled it out. and writing it kind of taught me how to do it, if that makes sense. I'm not saying, you know, it's brilliant or that I immediately know how to do it, but it was a, it was just a nice thing at this stage of my life

to be able to sit down and write something in a different format that I'm not used to and come away thinking, well, that wasn't bad, you know, we kind of might be able to do this, you know, so, so and also, and you know, I don't, I've often said this and it sounds like I'm just trying to to have commiseration reward. What's that word? Condolences? Something like that. Anyway.

But like, I've experienced so much more of life now. Like I used to be very, very siloed in the comedy world. You know, I used to imagine, if you looked over where I hung out in Soho and drew a map of where I went, it would. just be like a big black line after a while of the same places. I was very much on a kind of on rails. And then this happened, completely derailed me, and just kind of threw me into so many different situations that I wouldn't have otherwise been in, met so many interesting people, and also just had the kind of mist fall from my eyes about the way the media has been lying for the last 10 years and what the media has been doing. And finally beginning to

to realize that, oh, this is just, we're just being manipulated to keep us, to keep us under control and to keep us docile. But unfortunately, they did that with the wrong thing. Because you can't tell fathers that their daughters won't have fair sports. You can't tell women that they can no longer be safe in rape crisis centers and so on. It's not going to happen. You know, that is the immovable object that proved that the trans movement wasn't an unstoppable force, you know. And it's really interesting. interesting because we touched on this before the interview. I've always thought, Carlton Table, a huge fan, always happened since the days of Father

Ted loved your comedy, your writing, all of that. But one thing I've been really disappointed by is the cowardice of the people in your profession and our profession who have not wanted to go near this topic, even though privately they go, I secretly agree with what you're doing, number one. Or number two, the people who would just come out in full force and support this nonsense. Robin Ince and people like that. You know, David Tennant and all of these people,

you go, what's going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think often with those people, there's some sort of personal connection. Their cousin or, you know, nephew or whatever it happens to be is calling himself non-binary and everyone's going along with it for an easy life, you know? And they get suckered into it that way.

The people I don't understand, and the phenomenon I don't understand is the first part of what you said, the people being scared. It's like, wow, it's it that easy to keep people scared, to get them so scared, they won't even approach a topic. And this happened without us realizing that we were now in a world, like the way I often put it is that with social networks, and I'm a great example of this, because for the first, while I was building up a social media presence, not that that's what I aim to do, I was just telling jokes. internet you know but as I was building that up I was creating around myself a structure by which I could be harassed and we all do that we all have it you know to later greater or lesser extent the people who have no internet footprint at all they are very hard to harass you know it's extremely difficult to get to them but if you have any kind of an online life they got you you know like I like one of

of, I can't talk about this because my current trial, but like, I know they do things like, you could take a picture in your house, right, and you can see the world outside the window behind you. Well, they'll look at that world. Don't try and figure out where you live from it, you know? So any information you have online, they will grab. And because I was the writer of Father Ted and I never thought anyone would come after me, our business address was actually our home address and it was on company's house. And of course, one of the first things that this guy did to me was publish our home address, you know, which kind of scared my wife even more. So, but what I do find, I just find it disturbing that everyone just kind of did the same

thing. They all just bowed their heads and waited for the mob to pass by. No one said, hang on, there's a mob and we should be looking out for each other. Everyone just bowed their heads and waited. it and that's what I find extraordinary. In fact, I don't even know if they even knew they were doing it. I would ask people and they talk about it as if it's just an annoyance, you know, this, this, this, you know, I don't have anything to do with that, you know. It's like, well, fair enough, but, you know, some people don't have the choice, you know, the Darlington nurses for instance, you know, they don't have the choice.

They're being, their lives have been, you know, they're, they're being, their lives have been, you know, have been changed by this stuff and they didn't ask for it. So can't you stand up for them? Nope. Well, Graeme, you talked about if you were to draw a pick, track your movements within a small part of London while you were still in the creative world. And I think that's probably telling of the way that other people in that world also operates. Very insulated. everyone thinks that they're on the right side of history.

As, you know, you hinted before we started, like, you've changed your mind on a lot of things. And there was a point at which you saw a lot of people as evil and immoral, et cetera. You've kind of grown through that, haven't you, as a result of the experiences you've had? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think another thing to possibly, well, here's the thing. I don't know whether the left has changed.

I think they have. No, it's fair. The left have definitely changed. But I don't know if there was an aspect of them that was always like this. And it makes me look back. It makes me think of certain Stalin-esque aspects that this current movement has, you know, like disappearing people and reputation ruining and all that sort of thing. And it makes me wonder if that was always a feature of socialism and left-wing and liberalism

and not a bug, you know. Is Stalinism actually the thing that people... like about it because not not the the everybody gets to eat or everybody gets to own land no it's you get to destroy your enemies and i i i think that the left over the last few years have been very clear that that's what they want to do they want to destroy and kill their enemies the reason they killed charlie kirk was because he had the effrontery to debate them about their about their beliefs and then one thing that he kept revealing is that their beliefs were built on nothing. Their beliefs were built on a sort of very, very delicate network of their friends and what

the media is saying, but there's nothing beneath it, nothing powering it, no real, no facts, no, no, no philosophy, just a kind of a overriding urge to see the bad guy punished. you know and yeah now i look at things like the way it's so interesting when you see people going up to these um these booties weird kind of protest by boomers you know boomers seem to have gone completely mad but like going up to them and and putting microphone in their face and saying what specifically do you not like about x or y and they never know they can never say you know and so i i worry a little bit that that the left has become this engine that just wants to that realizes it can't win arguments based on just the kind of gut feeling that they all have.

And as a result, they're just going to take the opposition out by other means, whether it's by cancellation or by shooting them in the neck, you know? Yeah, it's really worrying how the language that is used online, particularly by the left. I mean, it's starting on the right. We're seeing it on the right as well, which is also worrying. But particularly on the left, you know, calling people fascist, Nazis. And just thinking that these words have no impact at all is, it's so reckless. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's also, I don't know, I think that the, I think there's been a, it's a, I think there's been an influence of the, the kind of wild west of the internet when you think about places like 4chan and Reddit and so on. I think there's, there's, trolling is something the left seems, seem to enjoy doing now, you know. It's never clever. It's just the most horrific kind of like that woman doing this to her neck to to some Charlie Kirk fans and so on. Apparently she was a teacher. Yeah, yeah. But as you say, all these people think they're on the side of the angels, so nothing they can do can be bad. That's the way they think about it. But again, it's not not based on anything

tangible, you know? It's like, well, do you, you know, if Camala Harris let loads of undocumented people in and he's stopping that, what is your problem exactly? What, you know, what is, what is your problem with all this? And so, oh, he's grabbing people off the street. You know, and then you find you do a little bit of research, you find out their cartel members or something, you know. And it's like, what are you complaining about? What is the actual substantive reason to hate Trump so much?

Not just hate him as, you know, we all hate our elected leaders, But to have this kind of, you know, uncontrollable rage about him, you know, I mean, but I have to say, I had it, I had it myself. I suffered from it myself. And when he first won at the election, when was it, 2017? 16, yeah. 16. Yeah. I think that was the start of when they started going into a depression, you know.

I was up all night because I couldn't believe it. I still resent that I didn't get a good night sleep that night over nothing. And I remember breaking it to my son, as if it was the most serious thing in the world. You know, my son actually said, you're joking, because I'd filled him with so much nonsense about him. And then, and then, you know, the second term comes along. And he's surrounding himself with fairly good people, it seems. They're not all perfect, but some of them seem to be interested in making the US a better place. He's changed in that he seems a little bit better behaved.

He's still funny, but it doesn't, he doesn't just, it's not just kind of coming out randomly. He, you know, he's, he's obviously learned from his previous experience and understands the mechanics of the presidency now. You know, so I just don't, I think, do you know what I think it is? Actually saying it out loud, I now realize what it is. It is his competency. It is his ability to get things done that they hate. Same with Charlie. That was your point.

They would target at him because he was effective in what he did. Yeah. This is the weird thing about the way, the weird thing with President Trump, and there plenty of things to criticize him for and disagree with him and dislike about him or the MAGA movement or the party, lots of problems as there are in every person in every party, whatever. But he is uniquely criticizes. for doing the things that he was elected to do. Yeah, yeah. People voted on immigration in this country

to a very, very significant extent. And when he tries to deal with it, that's what it is that he's then criticized for. Very weird. But it's interesting, you said you were filled with a kind of TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, hatred. You clearly have been cured of all of that. Do you think other than being violently,

not violently, other than being viciously harassed and cancelled, is there a cure for this sort of derangement? Not just Trump, but in general. There's like... You know what? I think you might have to be destroyed, but by the same people who were telling you, who are lying to you about Trump before you realize, oh, hang on a second, you know?

Like, I used to believe it about all sorts of people without knowing why. I remember it was a bad smell around Joe Rogan. And I remember thinking, oh, he's right wing. You know, just this vague thought in my head. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with being right way. No, I know. No, I'm not saying you, but like, because of we, because, oh, he's right wing, it's just like, why it believes in small government?

That's the other thing I realized, you know. I've met so many conservatives recently, and, you know, they're smart people who you can really have a good conversation with. You can't really have the same kinds of conversations with leftists, usually, you know, because they're all, they're so much, they're so feelings driven. And they're so kind of, I don't know, they're so removed from reality, you know. It's like this thing that in Ireland, again, this, what I was saying about the bubbling pot, you know, this recent, the girl who was killed recently, 10-year-old girl, I'm sorry, not killed,

raped, 10-year-old girl was raped. And the BBC did an extraordinary thing. They reported on the riots, but they didn't say why they happened, you know? you would think that that would be a part of it, but it's just riots in Dublin, like it's weather or something. And so you realize that all these people who defamed me and called me a bigot, and that's what they're in the job of. They're in the job of selectively giving people information.

That means they will do what they want them to do. And it's why I brought up the werewolf game at the last time we spoke. Because, you know, unless we develop some some tools to combat the misinformation we're being fed from the people we trust, then it's going to be a very rocky next few years because you've seen what AI can do. You seem to, it's now, just the other day, Connolly, Christine Colley, I can't remember her first name, but the presidential candidate in Ireland announced her resignation, you know, but it wasn't, it was AI. And that's going to happen more and more often, and

And this unsteadiness on our feet is going to get worse and worse and worse. And the sad thing is we don't have anyone to protect us. We should have, in the UK, we should have had the BBC to protect us from that. The BBC should have been the gold standard, you know? That if the BBC says it, then is probably true, right? That should be, that national broadcaster, it should be like that, that taxpayers pay for. But now, no, they've just spent 10 years lying to people. I think that the, I think there was a, there was a, there was a, a, a, a, a, kids seeking gender reassignment when I am Leo, the BBC program came out.

They've never apologised for that. They've never apologised for pushing this. And as a result, you know, we just, this, this, we're going into, to an uncertain future where we really can't be sure what we're seeing is real or not. And we don't have anyone on our side, except us stragglers who, with, we, with, all our little independent things that are going on, my little substack. You know, I know trigonometry is huge, but you know what I'm saying. We should be able to look to certain things. It was like Matt Taibi's point about Edward Morrow, that, you know, that was a time when he was hugely respected.

And if he said something, you could be sure it was pretty well fact-checked and, you know. But now you just don't have that certainty. anymore. A while back, I pushed myself in training because I'm a bit of a legend, but ended up with a back strain that took far longer to recover from than it ever used to. Nothing dramatic. Just one of those moments where you realize your body isn't snapping back the way it once did. And as you get older, those moments start adding up. Turns out there's a real reason for that. Your stem cells are the repair system your body relies on. They're the internal maintenance crew that keeps you healing, recovering and functioning,

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but they're not the answer. Yeah. Because you see it with new media. I mean, actually, unfortunately, look, we're very happy with where we are, we're doing very well. But if you look at the things that attract the most attention in the new media world. It's crazy, bad shit conspiracy crap. Yes, yes. That's what's also happening, because that appeals to people. And also, I'm sure you would draw, I mean, I know you've had some great moments as well with the Oxford debates and things like that, you know.

But there is a part of me that wishes, I still wish I was sitting around a table just talking about different words for farts with some full. funny people, you know? That's been kind of taken from us because we've had to step in. It's so ridiculous to even say that, but we have, we've had to step in and do the job that the BBC and other mainstream channels aren't doing, you know? We shouldn't have to do this. We're not professional.

Do you know what I mean? We started off trying to make people laugh and now we have to do this. Why is that now our job? isn't someone you know like like why isn't there a david dimblebee type or where they all gone you know and and they're still there but they're lying and they're misrepresenting like today program is still misrepresenting uh women women's hour that still doesn't have uh feminists on us you know like like helen joyce and so on um they just won't do their jobs so we have to do it it's a crazy situation Do you think Britain will recover from this?

Do you think there comes a point where all of this is dialed back? I think the gender thing is, yeah, I don't think that that's a problem. I think that the real problem, though, is the immigration thing in terms of how it's been reported and not reported. So I think that the idea that you can keep mollify a nation of people who are worried about what these changing, demographics mean to their country, if they can't speak about that, and if their speech about that is considered racist, then it's a far greater worry to me that we're seeing some sort of, I don't

know, some sort of social breakdown over the next few years, you know? I don't think, I think that that is entirely possible. Ireland just had this rape. Something like that could happen at any moment with the way with the way immigration is unchecked at the moment and it's it's it'll just take something like that to make it all go off you know and then the police will really enter into the new stage of their existence which is just pure keeping people from you know burning burning stuff up. And it's not going to be pretty. And unfortunately, I don't see the media changing.

They haven't learned from the trans issue, certainly, because they're still doing it. But I don't see them saying, hang on, we have to reflect the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Because once you do that, then, you know, at least people feel they're being haired, you know. But if you're not even being heard, then that kind of social breakdown is much more,

it's much more possible, I think. I mean, that's the worrying thing, because you look at what's happening in Ireland. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I know very little about it. I've got some Irish relatives, but you're looking at it and you talk to a few people, you go, well, this is a powder cake. Yeah. And yet no one's talking about it.

Yeah, that's it. What is happening in Ireland? I think just that we've had, do you know that weird European project of just flooding the country with immigrants for some reason. I don't know if there's someone somewhere going, oh no, if we do this, everybody will be 10 quid better off or something. But there's no reason given for it.

It's changing the demographics of the country. It's changing the demographics of the country. I believe in Galway, the most popular name is Muhammad now. Now, I'm pretty sure that's not a rumor, but it might not have been Galway. And you know, you have these hostels that are being turned over completely to immigrants. Again, they're not families.

They're military-aged men. What does anyone hope to gain by all this? What is going on? And what does anyone hope to gain by not letting the Irish speak about it? And RTE is just allergic to allowing anything other than the Dublin Four kind of media mindset to, to, you know, dictate what the, what the discourse is. And also, Ireland has got a tremendous housing crisis. It's practically unaffordable to buy property in Dublin.

Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. And you know, you go to Dublin, go to any restaurant, the prices are unbelievable. It's Dublin is kind of not, it's only possible to live in Dublin if you're of a certain tax bracket, you know. It's like just you're either rich or nothing, you know. And it's like, and also, you know, even if you're well off, you can't buy anywhere because the house prices are so insane. So every household has three or four cars. It's the only place that they can't move out.

And it's the only place they can be in private. We've got this massive traffic problem as well. You know, that's slightly better these days, I think. But it's, I don't know. The thing that's taken a real hit for me over the last few years is thinking there's anyone somewhere who knows what they're doing and will sort it out. You know, you used to think, well, they know what they're doing in banks or they know what they're doing. They know what they're doing in the cockpit, you know, but you don't have that easy confidence

in everything now because you realize, oh, they're just people like me. And they might be good at their jobs, but when you think about, there was a funny quote a science fiction writer once said he was asked at this conference well is 95% of of science fiction crap and he said 95% of everything's crap and it's true that in life it seems to be that there's a few people who are truly capable you know charlie kirk seemed to be one and they've killed them um and everybody else is either just you know trying to get by trying not to let other other people know how not in control they are and and coast through life never never bringing their A game never bringing any expertise or or or empathy to

to their jobs and you realize well that's that's government you know that's that's that's that's what we got and and I just don't feel I feel I feel I I often bring up the image of the empty cockpit, you know. You're on a plane and you open the door to the cockpit and there's just no one there. That's how I felt over the last few years. All the things that I felt kept life stable and sane and, um, you know, allowed me to just go on writing comedy and not thinking anything was, you know, being allowed to be in this little play pen where, where my decisions didn't affect anything other than, uh, what was going

to appear on a half hour of television, that's gone, you know, because you can't be as carefully anymore. You have to check every document from your kid's school to make sure they're not being taught some craziness. You have to be on top of everything, and that's good, that's exhausting. I can understand why some people don't even want to take the first step into this new world. But unfortunately, it's the one we've all taken because, you know, it turns out to be the world we're in. And is what you're afraid to be talking about is the trend. transition from a high trust society to a low trust society, which is devastating. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I get less of a feel of it here.

America feels kind of high trust. I don't know why, but it just, I don't know, it's just so big, I guess, and the people here are, it's harder to control them. Yeah. There's also not such thing as America because you live in Arizona. If you live in New York, you'll experience a very low-trust society. Sure, sure. You know, it's also where you are. Yes, and also possibly whether you're near a city or in a city. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. But I'm glad you found a great life here, but it is a, it's a massive loss for the fact that, and this is such a weird thing because it applies across the board. You've got the guy who created Revolut, the banking. Oh, yeah. He's left for Dubai. The reason is, as I understand, a tax policy in Britain. Okay.

You've got, you know, and that is because government is going crazy on that side of things. Yeah. Then you've got people like you who are forced to, like, if you could have Father Ted the musical touring around Britain and Ireland and the rest of the world, you'd still be in the UK if you weren't getting arrested every time you land at Heathrow. Yeah. And on and on and on. And it's just, it's just a process of a massive brain drain of talented, driven, ambitious,

skilled people being driven out by people who are the exact opposite. Yeah. Who are not geniuses, who are not talented, who are not ambitious, who are mediocre. And there's this sort of like mediocre tyrannical layer of people who are in charge. And they're driving out the passion, the creative, the talented, the risk takers, the wealth generators. Yeah. And, you know, until until that ends,

This is what's going to happen. And people are you going to be sitting here by a beautiful pool in the sun. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I, I, yeah, I mean, that's about the size of it. It's not a happy place, it seems to me, when I go back to the UK. No. I worry about it sometimes. You know, my kids are still there, obviously.

They're in college now. So I'm particularly worried about them. But I don't know, I just, I sometimes wonder whether the UK has a future, you know. I've never, I've never felt like that before. But it's, there's so many, there's so many examples of the ruling class or, or what I call the regime of media, politicians, and cultural institutions, all basically agreeing on the same line. Like, that's, that's just not going to end up anywhere good. It's all, like, for as an example, it's already killed theater in London. I believe theatres are about to shut down, you know.

And that's because, unfortunately, the theatre world has been taken over by, as you say, mediocrities, you know? And what better way of elevating yourself if you're a mediocrity than tearing down the person who's doing better than you? You know, you certainly see it in children's publishing. The other children's writers who are coming after rolling are very, you know, you'd never hear of their work otherwise, you know. So, yeah, this last few years has been a sort of a decade of mediocrates telling, telling their better is what to do. Graham, always good to have you back, even though it tends to be when terrible things have happened. Thanks for coming on, as you know, before we go to our audience questions for you, we always ask, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be? We're actually talking about the one thing that we should be talking about.

which is the gender ideology. For years it has been, you know, just unthinkable to even bring it up in polite company. But now it's unavoidable and I think that, no, that's not a good answer. Sorry, you want the one thing that people aren't thinking about it. Yeah. I think it's fair to say that anyone listening to this is fairly familiar with the transition. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can skip the question. Or you can just say about, you know, the work you're doing with Rob and Andrew, if you want. Actually, there's a good example, isn't it? Andrew having to leave. Yeah, no, I think people, maybe I should not tell people what they should talk about for a while.

Maybe I should take a holiday. Holidays are great. People are not, look, you know, you say that, I actually, I've been taking a lot more time off. Yes. particularly as I get older because not that we have the hardest job in the world but like what we do is intense mentally yeah and I was starting to find that if I'm like going on and on and on without taking any time off a my health suffers yes and B I become a bit of a dick yes you know so actually you know taking time off from what you do especially if you're in a kind of heated

environment of the kind that we operate in I think it's very important and it's it's stable and grounding. So it's a very good point. We should all we should all take some time off. Yeah. Okay. There we go. I told you what the one thing we're not talking about is. Head on over to triggerpot.com.ukh, where we ask Graham your questions. When a joke offends, who owns the problem nowadays? The comedian, the audience, or the culture that's lost its sense of proportion.