INSIDIOUS hypocrisy in tabloid journalism No 792: the Scottish Sun's front-page piece today with the headline The Bravest Man in Ibrox.

Let's recap: a man ran onto the pitch at Ibrox during a game of football last night between Rangers and Israeli team Maccabi Haifa last night, waving a Palestinian flag above his head. Aha, I hear you say, there's the 'bravery' The Sun is talking about - it was ill-advised to make such a gesture in front of the away team's fans given the historical and political tinderbox that is the state of Israel, no?

Alas, no. The man's apparent bravery, The Sun sez, was to be wearing a t-shirt bearing a photo of the Pope. Never mind the recent breakthroughs against sectarianism at Ibrox - UEFA's charges against the club last season and, finally, an unequivocal stance against bigotry from David Murray - and never mind that no one seemed compelled to run on the pitch and leather the bearer of the offending t-shirt. The Sun smells sh*t and it wants to stir.

Cue a classic Sun quote - one that isn't phrased how anyone actually speaks and whose utterer remains conspicuously anonymous (i.e it's what the reporter wants someone to say, but in the absence of anyone actually having said it, just make it up and - bingo! - you've stood up your story}. In this case, 'one fan' said last night: "He must be very brave. He was surrounded by nearly 50,000 Rangers fans and was wearing a top with a picture of the Pope on it. It is amazing he was not lynched by the crowd before he invaded the pitch."

So, the message of the story, should I need to spell it out, is that our t-shirt-wearing eejit exhibited bravery because, given the chance, each of those 50,000 Rangers fans would have joined a mob intent on summarily executing him. (Sorry, I can't find any other definition in my dictionary for the verb "to lynch"). Yet when I saw the courageous soul's death-defying dash on Reporting Scotland tonight, all he seemed to be dodging was a wave of indifference and a smattering of indignant oaths.

Try not to laugh the next time you read a sanctimonious leader in The Sun about the 'scourge of sectarianism'.