Episode
#172 - Graham Linehan - A Civilisation Built On Lies Cannot Survive
- Podcast
- The Peter McCormack Show
- Published
- May 6, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 5994
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://shows.acast.com/the-peter-mccormack-show/episodes/172-graham-linehan-how-fear-activism-took-over-modern-cultur
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Summary
Graham Linehan wrote Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Five BAFTAs. Then he said women's spaces should be for women, and the industry that built him decided he was a bigot. He lost his marriage, his career and twenty-five years of friendships. Once one of the most celebrated comedy writers of his generation, Graham became the first major artistic figure to be comprehensively cancelled for speaking out on sex-based rights - and has never gone quiet to claw his reputation back. He explains: • Why the people who built their careers alongside him refused to defend him • How a movement that didn't exist a decade ago captured medicine, sport, prisons and the BBC without a fight • Why women's sport, female-only spaces and child safeguarding became unsayable inside his industry almost overnight • How smartphones, algorithms and the collapse of physical community made a generation defenceless against ideological capture • Why activism replaced music, fashion and culture for a generation that was supposed to be having fun • What being arrested - and watching no-one call to ask if he was alright - actually teaches you about the people around you - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - TIMESTAMPS: 00:00:00 - The Cost Of Speaking Out 00:00:52 - They All Abandoned Me 00:10:54 - Where The Trans Movement Came From 00:24:55 - Sponsor Ad: Ledn 00:25:53 - Women's Sport, Self-ID, And Mixed-Sex Prisons 00:43:52 - Arrested - And No-One Called 00:48:26 - Phones, Algorithms, And The Anxious Generation 00:52:56 - Sponsor Ad: Monetary Metals 00:54:05 - The Father Whose Daughter Took Testosterone 01:04:08 - Everything Is Going To Shit 01:20:08 - October 7th And What Radicalised Him 01:34…