'This needs to stop!' Musk leads charge against Pearson's police probe

Pearson said she was told she was being investigated over a so-called "non-crime hate incident" - and blasted her "Kafkaesque" ordeal at the hands of officers who refused to disclose the contents of the post in question.

And the world's richest man - who has laid into Labour's clampdown on social media posts before - wrote on X: "This needs to stop."

His call to action followed strongly-worded messages by senior figures on the British Right: Nigel Farage, Liz Truss, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Philp, Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman and more.

Both Braverman and Philp lashed out at officers' 1984-style "thought police" approach to Pearson's "non-crime hate incident"

The former said: "More from the thought police under a Labour Government. We need to stop policing words on social media and tackle actual crimes.

"My message to Labour: protect freedom of speech, stop the overreach and focus on keeping our streets safe. But I don't hold out much hope."

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While Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, wrote: "The police should not be wasting time and resources targeting journalists or the public for simply expressing opinions.

"Only where the criminal threshold is met should police become involved. I do not think officers should be policing thought - only actual crimes that meet the criminal threshold.

"Freedom of expression must be protected, even where we disagree with the views being expressed. Police should concentrate on crime. Investigating opinions that are not criminal is totally unacceptable."

While Richard Tice and Robert Jenrick also joined in the pile-on - the former labelled the news "shocking", while the latter said sharply: "Police crimes, not tweets."

Sir Iain Duncan Smith directly referenced Orwell's 1984, calling the debacle "very Big Brother-ish" - while Liz Truss labelled the incident "yet another affront to free speech", adding: "We must speak out and fight back against this appalling bullying of Allison Pearson."

Nigel Farage, meanwhile, said: "On Remembrance Sunday of all days, when we remember those who fell for democracy and freedom of speech, it is outrageous that Allison Pearson had to face police officers on her doorstep as the result of a freely-expressed opinion.

"This is Orwellian in the extreme. I'm absolutely appalled that Allison and others like her have to live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them.

"People must be worried sick. We are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called 'victims'."

A spokesman from Essex Police told The Telegraph - which employs Pearson - "We're investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post, which was subsequently removed.

"An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act. As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday Nov 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter."