DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Free speech includes the right to offend

Julie Bindel, the indomitable feminist campaigner, is the latest prominent figure to tell of having been questioned by police over an alleged hate crime .

The allegation related to one of her tweets, but in a Kafka-esque twist, she was not told which one.

Equally bizarrely, the complaint was said to have come from a transgender man in Holland.

She assumed the accusation was one of 'transphobia', because of her often-stated view that trans women shouldn't be allowed access to female-only spaces – a view held by much of the population.

Regardless of its dubious legal merits, it's hard to see what jurisdiction the Metropolitan Police thought they had in this case. But it's far from an isolated example of what looks like blatant overreach.

Journalist Allison Pearson is being investigated by Essex Police for allegedly inciting racial hatred in a tweet she deleted many months ago.

She had re-tweeted a snap of officers standing with flag-carrying Muslims, ostensibly in London . She remarked that police were happy to pose with 'Jew-haters' but not the British Friends of Israel .

It turned out the picture had been taken in Manchester and that the flag-wavers were protesting about events in Pakistan rather than Gaza , so the tweet does appear to have contained inaccuracies.

It may also have been seen by some as offensive. But was it really criminal? And did it merit the setting up of a 'Gold group', usually used to deal with major crimes, to investigate it?

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley warned last week that his force faces 'eye-watering' cuts because of a funding shortfall.

He and other chief constables may find a more sympathetic hearing to their pleas for more cash if they stopped wasting precious resources on hare-brained cases like these.

This is a country built on principles of individual liberty and freedom of expression. The police are there to uphold them – not collude with those trying to crush them.

The air-miles PM In his apparent bid to become the Michael Palin of British politics, Sir Keir Starmer is currently on his 15th foreign trip since becoming Prime Minister.

He has visited six countries in the last month alone, including Samoa, Azerbaijan and now Brazil.

It's understandable the new PM wants to announce his arrival on the world stage. But this is beginning to look like a gap year – and one with a massive carbon footprint.

One can see why he's so keen to delay returning to the UK. After the hideously botched Budget, everyone from farmers to pensioners are out for blood and his popularity (never exactly high) is in tailspin.

He and other senior ministers are beset by sleaze claims, illegal migration is soaring, and the economic growth he promised to 'turbocharge' withers by the day.

These are problems requiring Sir Keir's urgent attention. It's time for him to put away his passport and get back to his day job of running this country.

After all, even Michael Palin has to come home eventually.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is planning to give millions of pounds to Vietnam, Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, in return for those countries trying harder to stop thousands of illegal migrants leaving their shores bound for the UK.

The Mail has no doubt they will accept the money. Whether it will make the slightest difference to the numbers arriving here is distinctly less certain.