There’s plenty in Scotland that divides us – such as football, politics and religion.

But woe betide anyone who picks unjustly on one of our own.

Especially when it’s someone who is not just innocent of any wrongdoing, but who has faced daily struggles that most of us cannot contemplate.

That’s when we come together in angry defiance and defence against those whose hypocrisy knows no bounds.

The anger felt by so many Scots at the unjust treatment suffered by Tourette’s sufferer John Davidson at and after the Baftas has united the nation.

‘Down the pecking order’

There’s a wholly justified rage at the duplicity of the film industry and many of the luvvies in it, which has been perfectly encapsulated in their disgraceful treatment of John, from the Borders town of Galashiels.

Tourette’s causes involuntary motor and vocal tics over which the sufferer has no control, and coprolalia – uncontrollable use of obscene language – affects some sufferers, including John, who has spoken about it publicly.

Invited to the Baftas in midweek to celebrate the film I Swear, which portrays his everyday life struggles with the affliction, John shouted out the N-word when black actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage.

The incident wasn’t edited out prior to the broadcast of the awards ceremony on BBC One and was only withdrawn a day later from BBC iPlayer.

The term is racist, highly offensive and a slur (to my mind, regardless of the skin colour of the person using it).

But the furore over the matter has exposed the vicious underbelly of many in an industry which chants the mantra of diversity and kindness.

It seems that there are limits to those characteristics, and a hierarchy in which some folk are less equal than others.

John Davidson’s neurological disability comes down the pecking order it seems.

Only an industry located so firmly up its own backside could gather to honour a film illustrating the grim realities facing someone living with Tourette’s and then be so publicly aggrieved when the actuality of that illness – and the involuntary nature of its effects on those suffering from it – reveals itself in their midst.

The debilitating effects of the illness were vividly illustrated by the fact that John felt sufficiently embarrassed that he excused himself from the main body of the hall to another part of the arena, after his uncontrollable outburst.

‘Film industry hypocrisy’

Not only did John’s grim condition enrage the carefully crafted and tender sensibilities of some of those present, but we’ve also witnessed savage and unedifying attacks on a man who is imprisoned daily by a disease which has no cure and over which he has no control.

The confected compassion in the world of those who espouse empathy and kindness has been brutally revealed for the sanctimonious guff that it is.

It seems that for some superficial individuals who piously pontificate about equality, John’s neurological disability makes him less equal than some others.

The BBC has been fingered as culpable in not editing the segment from their coverage.

However, they may have inadvertently done us a favour in revealing the hypocrisy of an industry where some folk have more faces than the ancient Roman god Janus.

© The Courier