Celtic fans are right to respond to the bitterness of Tom English.

The great thing about absolutes is that they are what they say on the tin. There are no negotiations or compromises with them. If you take an absolutist position, you are going all or nothing. Any deviation from that position, any contradiction, makes you look like a tit.

There is a reason most people shy away from absolute positions in their lives. Not everyone is that dumb. Most people know that when you turn everything into a black-and-white situation, you leave yourself no room for compromise and no room for a backward step.

Try that enough times in your life and see how quickly things get difficult.

We all know that the last few days and weeks have broken some people. One of those people appears to be BBC Scotland’s Tom English, whose Twitter feed has become an outpouring of anger at Celtic, Celtic fans, the Celtic manager and just about anything connected to the club.

He has some brass neck complaining on his own feed about abuse he is getting from Celtic fans right now, when all he has done for the last seven days is kick at the club, the supporters, the players and the manager every chance he gets.

He thinks we should ignore stuff like this …

Yes, he has written some nice things about Martin O’Neill. But that was when he still accepted Martin O’Neill’s right to hold a point of view. Yet, even the praise has started coming with qualifications and bitterness attached.

He cannot simply say something nice about O’Neill without adding a lecture about the supposed disgrace surrounding the rest of the club.

English’s Twitter feed is a sight to see. I took screenshots of Ian Murray’s the other day before writing my piece on him. English’s is far worse.

Today, he has half-reversed his position on pitch invasions.

He is now pointing out differences between the pitch invasion at the end of Kilmarnock’s promotion season, which also involved Derek McInnes, and the pitch invasion at Celtic Park, which he seems to be saying was uglier in nature.

I cannot help thinking that the only thing he finds truly ugly about it is the name of the team that was triumphant.

That is the problem with moral absolutism.

Once you start making exceptions, the whole thing begins to collapse. If pitch invasions are inherently disgraceful, then say so and apply the standard everywhere. If context matters, then admit context matters and stop pretending Celtic Park was uniquely shameful.

But he wants it both ways.

He also seems to think Celtic fans insisting on proper language around the word “assault” is a smokescreen or a deflection. I have rarely seen a journalist so openly irritated by people asking that words be used carefully.

That is an astonishing position for someone in his profession to take.

Words matter. Definitions matter. Evidence matters. If someone says players were assaulted, then people are entitled to ask what that means, what evidence exists, whether anyone was injured, whether police were involved and whether charges will follow.

That is not a deflection. That is 101 of good journalism.

I wonder how his employers at the BBC feel about a journalist appearing to suggest that pursuing accurate language and insisting on factual clarity is something to be discouraged. Because if journalists are no longer supposed to care about words, evidence and truth, then what exactly are they for?

I think English’s conduct over the past week has been deplorable.

It is an astonishing brass neck for him to attack those who are responding to him as if there are no grounds on which to do so. His entire shtick at the moment is calling out Celtic supporters. If he did not expect a response, then he is even more naive than he comes across.

Almost everything he now says in response to Celtic fans carries bile.

Still, I feel that singling him out lets a lot of other people off the hook, because he is not alone.

Even as I write this, two more stories in the papers are attempting to suggest that sanctions may be coming down the road. The Evening Times is quoting from Football Insider, with an ex-Aberdeen CEO talking about potential points deductions, even suspended ones.

Any news agency quoting Football Insider already sounds desperate. But the idea that there will be points deductions over this is too preposterous even to contemplate sober. It is an idiotic suggestion, and I guarantee it will never happen.

In the meantime, the Herald, which is essentially tied into the same media ecosystem, is promoting George Foulkes’ latest stage in his alleged campaign against the club. Apparently one angry old man shouting into the void is now a campaign.

Not satisfied with writing to the SPFL, and not satisfied with shrieking at FIFA to no avail, he is now writing to the SFA for answers to questions which are already available on dozens of websites, including this one, which are not wedded to the conspiracy theory and mythology surrounding this game.

He says it is increasingly clear that the match was stopped by the pitch invasion before all the extra time had been played.

I destroyed that argument this morning by pointing out that the referee’s watch keeps running and that it is at the referee’s discretion which time gets added on. If Foulkes thinks it is increasingly clear that something untoward has taken place here, I would suggest that it is only increasingly clear to those with brains pickled in bigotry or booze, and in his case perhaps a toxic sludge of both.

But assorted goons being quoted like experts is one thing. English is different, because he represents the national broadcaster.

BBC Scotland has not covered itself in glory here. At times, it has felt less like a broadcaster trying to establish what happened and more like part of the wider campaign to frame Celtic and Celtic supporters in the worst possible light.

I don’t know what Celtic intend to do about that as a club. I don’t know how we intend to respond. But I know one thing about these jackals: unless you confront them and give them a reason to back off, they come back for more.

If we think the passivity we are showing right now is going to work, it is not.

Martin O’Neill goes in front of the media tomorrow, and every one of them is going to have a pop. I know our manager can handle that. He can take it. But some of those people simply should not be sitting in that room if their outlets are waging open war against us.

I do not use that phrase lightly. After the last seven or eight days, it feels like the only reasonable term left.

It is becoming increasingly clear that one of the leading voices at BBC Sport Scotland has allowed bitterness to colour his judgement. His recent output does not look like the work of someone interested in dealing carefully with fact, truth and evidence.

It looks like the work of someone perfectly happy to spread innuendo, amplify grievance and smear football supporters, as long as they are wearing our colours.

And that is the real problem here.

Not criticism. Criticism is part of football. Celtic can take criticism. Celtic fans can take criticism. God knows we dish out enough of it ourselves.

But this is not criticism. This is something else. This is the kind of media conduct that starts with a conclusion and then goes looking for fragments to support it.

Tom English took the absolutist route. He talked as if this was simple.

English talked as if Celtic fans were uniquely culpable. He talked as if the moral lines were clear.

Now, as soon as awkward comparisons appear, suddenly context matters. Suddenly not all pitch invasions are the same. Suddenly definitions become deflections. All of a sudden, Celtic supporters asking basic questions are the problem.

That is not journalism. That is hypocrisy.

He has always been more associated with the latter than the former; this is the worst I’ve ever seen it.

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