# #172 - Graham Linehan - A Civilisation Built On Lies Cannot Survive Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/172-graham-linehan-a-civilisation-built-on-lies-cannot-survive Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/172-graham-linehan-a-civilisation-built-on-lies-cannot-survive.md Podcast: [The Peter McCormack Show](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419) Published: 2026-05-06T17:10:49+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/the-peter-mccormack-show/episodes/172-graham-linehan-how-fear-activism-took-over-modern-cultur Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/69d4f193b76468caacc5068f/e/69fb6e417272023359af8328/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/episodes/172-graham-linehan-a-civilisation-built-on-lies-cannot-survive Duration seconds: 5994 ## Resource 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… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/episodes/172-graham-linehan-a-civilisation-built-on-lies-cannot-survive/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-peter-mccormack-show-525419/172-graham-linehan-a-civilisation-built-on-lies-cannot-survive.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.