Keir Starmer wants the police to “focus on policing streets and not tweets”, Wes Streeting has said, after the writer of TV’s Father Ted was arrested at Heathrow over three social media posts on transgender issues.
Graham Linehan, who also created the IT Crowd, said he was intercepted by five armed officers after flying in from Arizona, and told he was under arrest over the posts.
The prime minister’s spokesperson on Tuesday dodged questions over whether the police should be focused on arresting people who have posted on social media about transgender issues.
However Streeting, the health secretary, went further, subtly criticising former Conservative governments for “layering more and more expectation on the police”, saying it “diluted” their focus on the public’s priorities.
“Well, as the prime minister and the home secretary have been clear, we want the police to focus on policing streets rather than tweets,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “It’s very easy for people to criticise the police but the thing we are always mindful of as a government that backs the police to keep us safe, is that the police are there to enforce the laws that we as parliament legislate for.”
He added: “So if over the years with good intentions parliament has layered more and more expectation on the police and diluted the focus and priorities of the public, that is obviously something we need to look at.”
JK Rowling labelled the arrest was “totalitarianism” and “deplorable”.
Conservative MPs described it as “ridiculous” and accused the police of “arresting people for making jokes”, and Elon Musk described Britain as a “police state”.
Streeting, who refused to criticise the police, said he is “proud” to live in a country that comes down “like a tonne of bricks on racism, discrimination … that is the right thing to do.”
But he said the boundaries can be blurred “sometimes” and that it was difficult for the police “because they have to apply the law as it is written not the law as sometimes it was intended”.
The health secretary indicated this discussion on police priorities, in relation to policing social media, is one of nuance and “shades of grey” rather than “than black and white”, as he rejected the idea that free speech has been “banned”.
“When it comes to speech, context is king,” he added. “We do have to I think as legislators think really carefully when it comes to boundaries of free speech.
Speaking more explicitly on how the law could be changed, Streeting told Sky News: “One of the things the home secretary is looking at is, are we tasking the police, are we asking the police to focus on the right things?
“And if we’ve distracted as parliament under the previous government, if they’ve been distracted, being asked to do things we don’t see as a priority, that is something we will deal with.”
Linehan will appear at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday accused of harassing the transgender woman Sophia Brooks and damaging her phone, which he denies.
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For the posts he wrote on X, he was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence.
Shami Chakrabarti called for an “overarching review” in speech offences.
The Labour peer and former Liberty director told the BBC “the statute book has exploded”, with “vague, duplicative and unclear laws, not understood by the public or even some of the police”.
“Sometimes people are looking for security by overseeking security through policing rather than thinking about how we can all contribute to keeping the peace – we’ve become intolerant,” Chakrabarti added. “I would like to see a review of the statute book, but inciting violence even if you say you’re being comical, to be talking about assaulting a group of people who you don’t like, is something worth looking at now.”
Sir Max Hill, the former director of public prosecutions, backed Chakrabarti’s calls for a review, saying it is ultimately “parliament’s job”, adding: “It would undoubtedly help the lawyers and the police to have as clear a steer as they can possibly be given.”
Rejecting the idea of “totalitarianism”, Hill added: “As for Linehan, it’s difficult to comment on his manner of arrest, but it’s an arrest, the police act on reasonable suspicion. They don’t act only on guilt. So it’s highly likely the Crown Prosecution Service haven’t even been given the chance to consider whether that gentleman has crossed the line or not.”
It comes as Nigel Farage is expected to raise Linehan’s case while giving evidence to the US House judiciary committee in Washington and say Britain has become an “authoritarian censorship regime”.
The new leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski, however, told Newsnight the posts were “totally unacceptable” and the arrest seemed “proportionate”.
