Some of Scotland’s politicians have shamed themselves in the last week.

Let’s talk about politicians. Let’s talk about people who are so embittered by what has gone on over the last few weeks in relation to Celtic that they cannot seem to get over themselves.

Let’s talk about those who cannot stop running their mouths off, and then let’s talk about one Scottish politician who has, so far, handled this with a degree of restraint that others would do well to learn from.

Because over the last few days, we have seen a particularly embarrassing episode unfold. Not just from hacks, pundits and former players, but from people in positions of public responsibility.

Football supporters can talk nonsense. Bloggers can write nonsense. Pundits can talk nonsense. God knows, the Scottish football media is basically a national training academy for it. But politicians are different. They have office. They have platforms. They have reach.

Their words carry weight, and when they choose to feed grievance narratives, they cannot pretend they are just another angry punter shouting from the cheap seats.

The north of Ireland has produced its usual little chorus of voices who want to throw their tuppence worth into the Scottish title race story. Some of these people are frequent rabble-rousers from the unionist side, always ready to say something whenever Celtic win and there is a chance of having a dig at us.

Whether it is in support of the Ibrox club, or just to make general mischief, they always seem to find their way into the conversation. They were vocal after Celtic fans sang “Lizzie’s in a box.” They are always vocal during the annual Poppycock.

They are profoundly anti-Celtic and their interventions are usually as predictable as they are tedious.

Those people are best ignored.

They come from a particular political ecosystem, one which has never needed much encouragement to see Celtic as a convenient target. Various unionist activists are good at getting their names in the papers, but not for much else. There is no real point spending too much energy on them. They are not serious people making serious points. They are people looking for a headline.

I noticed Kate Hoey had her say recently too, and that was quite funny, since I did not even know Kate Hoey knew anything about Scottish football or followed it in any way, shape or form.

But she seems awfully opinionated on a subject I would imagine she has very little understanding of. I find contributions like that fascinating because they are clearly self promotion and bandwagon jumping.

There will always be a willing audience up here for anyone who wants to kick Celtic. There will always be newspapers willing to print it. I’m just not sure what someone of that ilk has to do with anything going on here. You can lump people like that in with the loyalist politicians and activists. Their views are largely inconsequential.

But there are people with a much more serious role to play here, and some of them are based in Scotland.

Let’s talk about George Foulkes first.

I’ve met him a couple of times, back in the days when I was a trade unionist and Labour Party member. I always found him arrogant.

It might be wise to remember that he has his own history.

He once assaulted a police officer after leaving a Scottish Whisky Association event. He signed a petition opposing Pope Benedict receiving a state visit. He has spoken against Catholic education. He has been a vocal critic of this club in numerous situations over the years.

Hearts losing a title at Celtic Park was never going to bring out a calm, balanced response from him.

There is also the old Sunday Mail report about his son, a fellow Hearts fan, being convicted and fined after hurling bigoted abuse at Celtic fans during a match in 2000. That story is not hard to find if you know what you are looking for.

The Sunday Mail reported at the time that Foulkes’ son was fined at Glasgow Sheriff Court after initially denying shouting, swearing and taunting rival fans with sectarian abuse before changing his plea.

It also reported that he had told officers who arrested him: “You will be in trouble, my father is an MP and my mother is on the police board.”

The idea that Foulkes has written to FIFA because he does not like the answers he got from the SPFL is entitled nonsense from someone who appears to think his indignation should carry international weight. It won’t.

FIFA does not exist to process the hurt feelings of Hearts supporters because their team lost a title at Celtic Park. It does not exist to overturn domestic football outcomes because a number of commentators and third rate politicians have whipped themselves into a lather.

But Foulkes is not the biggest concern here.

A far greater concern is Ian Murray, MP for Edinburgh South and a Minister of State in the Labour government.

Murray, a Hearts supporter, described Celtic’s late penalty at Motherwell as “gut-wrenching” last week.

That was one thing. People are allowed to be gutted when their club’s title challenge takes a major blow.

But he went further; he told the BBC he dressed his daughter in a Hearts strip to go to school next day out of “defiance” against the decision.

Using his kid as a prop for his own anger already reeks of weirdness.

He has since turned his social media into a running grievance feed about Celtic, the SFA, the SPFL and the way this title race concluded. He isn’t even hiding the suggestion that there is something more to the decisions he disagrees with than simple human error.

I have screenshotted every single one of them in case he decides to do a little deep cleaning.

Because his behaviour is not harmless.

It is one thing to have bitter hacks crying the blues and indulging in conspiracy theories. It is another thing entirely when a serving government minister starts doing it.

I don’t care how much of it is performative.

It is irresponsible. It is reckless. It is exactly the kind of behaviour that people in public office should avoid.

You will not convince me that Murray does not know that a lot of the stuff being pushed online is nonsense.

If he does not know, then the question becomes even more worrying: what is a major political party doing putting someone so completely oblivious to the potential consequences of this in a high public office?

This is not Reform UK, after all. There is supposed to be some sort of basic standard here.

Perhaps Murray genuinely does not understand what happens when you feed a community a grievance narrative.

Perhaps he does not understand what happens when you tell people that the world is working against them, that secret forces are organising in the shadows, and that institutions have robbed them of what was rightfully theirs.

Except that he should because that’s one of the ways our political culture got into the state its presently in.

So, he really ought to know.

Perhaps he just does not care. Perhaps he’s not watched the footage from Ibrox, or understands how serious that was. Perhaps he’s unaware of the referee who needed police protection because of inflammatory statements which hinted at dark deeds or malign motives. But he should be.

Either way, he comes across as another irresponsible yahoo with a megaphone, and that is a dangerous thing for a politician to be.

Then there is the most well-known Hearts fan in the country: John Swinney, the First Minister of Scotland. Swinney has talked about legislation to make pitch invasions illegal, although he surely knows what we all know ourselves.

Had Hearts won the title on Wednesday night, there would have been a pitch invasion. Had Hearts won the title at the weekend, and had it been at Tynecastle, there would have been a pitch invasion. Nobody in the commentariat would have spent days howling about the end of civilisation.

Still, I am going to give Swinney the benefit of the doubt.

He is responding as the First Minister has to respond in the middle of media hysteria. He has not condemned Celtic as a club. He has not suggested that his own team was cheated out of a major honour. He has not fed the conspiracy machine.

It would be incredible if he did that. It would be even more incredible if some great conspiracy against Hearts actually existed and the leader of civic Scotland, himself a Hearts supporter, was not speaking out against it.

In fact, it is not so much what he has said that is instructive. It is what he has not said.

Foulkes and Murray would do well to consider that.

This really has been a particularly embarrassing episode from people in positions of responsibility.

Some have reacted in a grossly irresponsible and even dangerous fashion.

It is precisely because of people feeding victim narratives that officials end up requiring police protection. Murray can resent that point all he wants, but his public feed has been full of the suggestion that some great injustice has been done to his club.

He is entitled to believe whatever he wants behind closed doors. But I question the judgement of someone in his position, with his audience and responsibilities, publicising that grievance to the rest of the world.

It was this kind of normalised hostility, this kind of bitter atmosphere, that helped create the conditions in which Neil Lennon was assaulted at Tynecastle. It was at that stadium that Hearts supporters later wore masks of the man who attacked our manager.

Some people do not learn. Some people do not recognise that they have wider responsibilities, even when they are willing to stand for election and assume them.

Swinney, at least, appears to understand the weight of office. He has acted in a way that acknowledges there are issues to be dealt with and questions to be resolved. At the same time, he has not poured more fuel on a fire that already has far too much on it.

He gets that distinction. Others either don’t get it, or they just don’t care. That is what should concern us.

Not that politicians support football clubs. Not that politicians are emotional about football. That is normal enough. But when elected officials and public figures feed conspiracies, amplify grievances and encourage supporters to believe that institutions are secretly working against them, they are playing with fire.

In Scotland, of all places, they should know better. I am so sick of these morons. Football here is not just football. It touches identity, religion, politics, class, history and community memory. The people in public office know that, or they should.

So, when they decide to behave like fans in a pub after five pints and a bad result, they do not get to pretend it is harmless.

It is not harmless. It is reckless. It is corrosive. It is dangerous.

And in the aftermath of a title race already poisoned by hysteria, some of these people should be deeply ashamed of themselves.

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