There are three things in life that everyone is an expert on. How other people should be bringing up their children; how to manage the sports team they support; and rather inevitably, how the police should be doing their job.

The latter was, and continues to be on display with considerable vim and vigour following the disgraceful riotous behaviour of Rangers fans in Glasgow, and George Square in particular, on Saturday.

With missiles including bottles and pyrotechnics whistling past officers heads, the condemnation of the police response was already ringing across social media. Calls for water cannon, mounted charges, and tear gas were amongst the most extreme, but by far the most common call was for something (unspecified) to be done, with the hypotheses that the police should simply have stopped it by some unknown or magical means. As ever the expectation is that the police will fix the problem, whatever the problem, and regardless of its cause. No one cares about the “why” or indeed the “how” anymore.

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Whilst it is inevitable the public, the media, and the political attention will turn to the immediate “post mortem” of the events; to allow that to be the end of the matter would be a catastrophic failure. There are of course legitimate questions to be asked, and answers to be demanded; and the crucible of Twitter is not the place for that. But those questions need to be asked of more than the police, and actually need to move beyond agency responses altogether.

There needs to be a deep-rooted examination as to why things have deteriorated to the point where almost everything is a source of conflict. Was the debacle and disgrace of George Square simply as a result of football or was it a symptom of something altogether more pernicious? No matter what it was, the thuggery cannot be tolerated and an urgent response is required. Anyone taking or seeking solace in that we are a year away from the end of another football season is, I would respectfully suggest, spectacularly missing the point.

As a nation we used to pride ourselves on our political savvy, guile, and ability to disagree agreeably. Disagreement is healthy, resentment is not. But resentment seems to be where we now are. Pick your issue, the constitution, Brexit, the UK's colonial past, immigration, climate change, race, religion, and on and on. Every one of these issues is a tinderbox. It seems that it's now no longer enough to simply believe in something, you have to actively stand against what your perceived opponent stands for, and we have already seen what that leads to.

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As a society, we need to take urgent action to strive to keep the sparks from igniting. The trading of political barbs is part and parcel of life, but where those barbs risk inflaming tensions with the potential for violence, they overstep the mark and debase our politicians and political structures.

Surely our nation doesn’t have such a lack of ambition as to resign itself to periodic and increasing displays of public violence in the name of any cause. If it doesn’t then we have a long summer of discontent ahead. Scotland, and Glasgow in particular, deserves better.

Calum Steele is the General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation.