It’s getting out of hand and legislation is required to deal with it. This offensive behaviour has gone on long enough and can no longer be tolerated.

Deep seated tribal loyalties are leading otherwise rational grown men and women to hurl insults at each other on an almost weekly basis.

They have so much mistrust of the other, often derived from past conflict, they have to be segregated inside an emotionally charged arena.

You can see it in their faces, they are conditioned to reject every value the other stands for, even though they are actually very alike.

In fact some of them are good friends, some are even in relationships with someone from the other side.

But when it comes to a certain time every week all that is forgotten and it’s all about defeating the other and all they stand for. Scoring is all that matters.

Scoring political points that is.

On the very same day we had politicians debating the offensive behaviour of football fans the Presiding Officer had to intervene and remind MSPs how to behave themselves in the chamber.

Even if it was a meek and feeble effort he still had cause to do it.

It is usually the backbenchers that are guilty. Shouting someone down, laughing as loudly as possible even if it is forced, orchestrated and pre-planned, in a bid to ridicule an opponent.

Mini squabbles break out across the chamber and guffaws and fake indignation masquerade as parliamentary duty.

They are not often seen on the television but they can be heard creating a hostile atmosphere which no doubt some thrive on.

Just like some of our football fans whose behaviour is unacceptable so to our MSPs should take a long hard look at themselves and ask is this what the rest of society really expects.

Just like those seated in the stands who embarrass their clubs and their country regularly those in the debating chamber are embarrassing our parliament.

Someone has to start it and this week it was Willie Rennie. He accused the First Minister of “lying” during a TV debate in 2016 about the closure of the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

It was purely for effect. The Presiding Officer initially let it go despite it being the worst you can accuse a fellow member of in the chamber.

Nicola Sturgeon wasn’t going to let it go though. She was livid, you could see it in her eyes as she looked to the Presiding Officer chair waiting for a rebuke.

In its absence, she said Willie Rennie was a “pathetic attention seeker” and ridiculed his party having collapsed at elections ever since 2010.

It might have sounded good in a parliamentary knockabout, but it will not make the slightest difference to the care of children in hospital which is what the issue really is.

Far too often in Holyrood issues that are about public services and people’s health and wellbeing are dragged down to the level of politicking and party point scoring, and personal abuse.

People in glass parliaments and all that.