WE are all, in some fashion, members of a tribe. Men or women. Weegies, or Edinburghers. Hielan’ folk or lowlanders. New Scots or those with many generations under their belts.

And, for the most part, even with the odd verbal skirmish, these dividing lines can be observed and managed without undue hostility.

But of late we’ve seen up close and far too personal what can go wrong when tribes fall victim to the extreme adherents in their ranks. Brexit has been the catalyst for some of it in the political arena. Somehow giving racists and bigots the confidence to spout their bilious thoughts in public.

It has also brought into unforgiving daylight the fissures within our political system. The UK Government is caught in the headlights as it tries to square the impossible circle of pacifying its rabid right wing whilst keeping more moderate members on board. Or watching them jump ship.

The official opposition is caught in more than two minds as the hard left coterie around the leadership try to square the impossible circle of maintaining their ideological purity whilst the majority of their membership languish in frustration or simply up sticks.

Meanwhile, the hell-bound handcart rolls on for the poor bloody voting infantry and those benighted souls in businesses large and small who would plan for a future if they had been given the smallest clue what that might be.

Simultaneously, in sport in the west of Scotland, we are treated to further evidence of the truly unsavoury nature of tribalism when it is fuelled by the kind of sectarian behaviour which is rightly looked on with astonishment in more civilised parts of Scotland.

I have a cartoon in my office penned by my late husband. It shows a fan inside a football ground looking at a signpost. It is designed to send fans and bigots in opposite directions. If only.

The sustained abuse Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke endured from Rangers “fans” and the mirror image language directed by Celtic “fans” at Kilmarnock’s Kris Boyd during another encounter with the Old Firm was as predictable as it is depressing.

We have a lot of CCTV at grounds now. If clubs are serious about removing this blot on the sporting landscape, they should find the perpetrators and ban them. The football authorities should take sanctions against offending clubs like making them play their next fixture minus any supporters.

That might concentrate a few Neanderthal minds.