Do we like Idris Elba?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Years of anti-knife-crime campaigning and youth work, with one contested Bond comment and a couple of small marks.
Idris Elba is now Sir Idris. He was named in the 2026 New Year Honours, recognised for his film work and for charity work, including his anti-knife-crime campaign. That's a decent summary of where he's landed: a big star who has put real hours into young people.
The messiest chapter is a 2019 row over his play Tree. Two writers who worked on it said they were dropped after about four years and alleged intimidation and disrespect. Elba denied it on Twitter, saying their leaving wasn't unusual in development and that he had a contractual right as holder of the original idea. It was a public spat, not a court case, and the record doesn't go further than those two sides.
The other mark is small and very 2026. In January, Westminster Magistrates' Court fined him £147 and gave him three penalty points after his scooter was clocked at 28mph in a 20mph zone. He pleaded guilty, and his lawyers said he never received the fixed penalty notice. Not exactly a crime wave, mate.
On the harm check, the searches turned up nothing from him against LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the planet. I found nothing from him on trans people either way, so that's a gap rather than a pass mark. I also found no sign he is working with anyone who pushes harm, though the coverage of his recent projects was thin. His public campaigning points the other way, and his sharpest recent talking point is the Bond one.
That Bond interview is the thing to chew on. He said some audiences won't go for a Black male playing Bond, said Bond was written how he was written for a reason, and added just be Bond. Where you land depends on whether you read it as a pragmatic comment on global markets or as a tired line borrowed from the culture wars. He also said critics made the idea off-putting by turning it into a race debate.
The good stuff is the knife-crime work. In January 2024 he launched Don't Stop Your Future, calling for an immediate ban on zombie knives and machetes and for more investment in services that tackle the root causes of youth violence. He said he couldn't stay silent as young lives were lost, and the knighthood citation singles that work out.