Sorry about the clickbait title but it illustrates the point I am trying to make.

In recent days Derek MacKay has been in the news because of his deeply inappropriate behaviour towards a 16 year old child. I sincerely hope that whatever book gets thrown at him it is large, heavy and aimed at him several times.

Meanwhile, on another thread, two regular correspondents have barely been able to contain their glee at what has been happening. And I find that very sad. Here we have a situation where a child appears to have been groomed by a powerful and very public figure and yet most of the comments have related to the impact this may have on Scottish politics. Very little, other than the opening post, has even mentioned the victim. Absolutely nothing has been said about the impact upon the victim's family. Similarly, there has been no discussion about what all of this says about our society.

It would have been easy for me to respond on that thread with a load of whataboutery. I could have named politicians from every party who have committed serious sexual crimes. But all that does is lead us on a race to the bottom - "You can't talk, your person "X" did something much worse than our person "Y".". And so on.

Surely what is more important is the recognition that some men (and it is invariably men) in powerful positions appear to think themselves immune from discovery, investigation, prosecution and sentencing. Quite frankly, I am becoming increasingly ashamed of my sex.

The only problem is I have no answers. Does anyone else?