- Gender confusion - 15th December 2025
- Sound the Trumpet - 12th December 2025
- Oh Lord! - 11th December 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and in a 42 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, the main political fault line between left and right has always been economic, but today it is sexuality and this is highlighted by comedy writer Graham Linehan being cleared of harassing a trans activist on social media but convicted of damaging her phone.
I like to think I am good at adapting to change (I have had a lot of practice!), but sometimes it is difficult.
For example, when I started in journalism all copy was physical and written on a typewriter. You would have to prepare several versions, and drop one of them in the News Editor’s wire basket on his desk.
Now, of course, everything is on a computer, and the copy is sent over digitally to an online ‘basket’, where the story (after sometimes being checked) can be put into the paper or website.
Yrt perhaps the most difficult change to adapt to has been political. It used to be the case that left of centre people could be identified by having certain views on the economy, while those right of centre held different views.
Today though it is different, and gender politics prevail, so it is difficult to identify where people stand on the political spectrum.
Let me give you an example.
A very close friend of mine is firmly anti Tory and pro-Labour, yet has traditional views on what makes a man a man, and a woman a woman.
He believes, and many are the same, that a man cannot be a woman because he hasn’t been confronted by issues such as periods, child birth, and the menopause.
Others though (also on the left) think sexuality is a societal construct, and people suffer terribly if they are in the wrong body, so ‘transitioning’ (perhaps with surgery) is the only answer.
I can see the force in BOTH arguments!
All of this is put centre stage for me by what has just happened in court.
The co-creator of hit show ‘Father Ted’, Graham Linehan, was cleared of harassing a trans activist on social media although he was convicted of damaging her phone.
Apparently Mr Linehan had “deliberately whacked” a teenage trans woman’s phone out of her hand and threw it in a road outside a conference, his trial was told in September.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court (WMC) also heard that the Irish comedy writer “relentlessly” posted abusive comments about a person on social media.
But his barrister said “the genesis” of the allegations against Mr Linehan originated from a police officer turned trans activist.
The judge in the case said Mr Linehan’s social media posts did not amount to harassment, although he was found guilty of causing criminal damage in relation to the phone. He had denied both charges.
During his trial, Mr Linehan told the court he believed exposing the tactics of trans activists was in the public interest, and that knocking the phone was a “reflex response”. He said his life had been “made hell” by transgender activists and others because of his views about gender identity.
His accuser, who was 18 at the time, is a trans woman who was born a biological male.
Although this was probably not said in court, the manner of Mr Linehan’s arrest had received great publicity.
He claimed in an online Substack article that he had been detained by five police officers at Heathrow Airport after flying in from the US.
Mr Linehan said that officials then became concerned for his health and took him to hospital. The police, though, have said his condition was not life-threatening and he was bailed pending further investigation.
In his Substack piece, Mr Linehan said his arrest was related to three posts on X from April.
The first post, from his X feed, called it a “violent, abusive act” for a trans-identified male to be in a female-only space.
He suggested: “Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls”.
But the arrest prompted a massive backlash from figures such as author JK Rowling and opposition parties including the Conservatives, who branded the arrest an “absurd infringement of free speech”.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch was highly critical of the arrest, saying: “Sending five officers to arrest a man for a tweet isn’t policing, it’s politics”.
However they are not alone, and the UK government’s health secretary too has misgivings apparently. Labour’s Wes Streeting has said ministers need to “look at” laws concerning online speech.
Mr Streeting said such laws had put “more expectation on police” and “diluted the focus and priorities of the public”, adding “that’s obviously something we need to look at”, and he said that ministers wanted the police to focus on street crime rather than posts on social media.
Yet the police are in an impossible position here, as they are only enforcing laws passed by the UK Parliament.
It seems that senior officers agree, because Metropolitan Police (Met) Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said his officers should not be “policing toxic culture wars debates”, and has offered to provide suggestions to the Home Office (HO) about clarifying the law and policy.
He added that: “greater clarity and common sense would enable us to limit the resources we dedicate to tackling online statements to those cases creating real threats in the real world”, and that they will be more selective about what posts it should investigate in future.
Going further, the Green Party leader Zack Polanski has said that the posts were “totally unacceptable” and the arrest seemed “proportionate”.
This is an extremely difficult area, and one that I am aware has caused a lot of ruckus (the ENTIRE governing committee of Welsh independence group Yes Cymru had to resign because of online abuse over it!).
It is a minefield for journalists to navigate – not least in using the correct term for people at second mention.
Is it ‘Miss’, ‘Mrs’ ‘Ms’ or ‘Mr’?
And don’t get me started on the difficulty for us in identifying where people stand politically!
The memories of Phil’s astounding, decades long award-winning career in journalism (which began when it was much easier to spot where people stood politically), as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
It would make a good Christmas present – Nadolig Llawen!
Tomorrow – why, as the final approaches of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, MORE disturbing news about the hit show once again puts centre stage the incredible REFUSAL by executives to answer The Eye’s questions about the huge number of scandals which have engulfed the giant corporation.
