Lame ‘Nazi’ accusations are common currency in the shouty and superficial world of social media debate but they’re generally ignored by people with better things to do than engage in pointless arguments with complete strangers.

Gary Lineker always struck me as a sensible person but sadly he’s thrown himself deeply into this ugly world in recent years, swimming in the cesspit with millions of blinkered political tribalists.

His reference to 1930s Germany, in relation to the government’s new immigration policy, may have been typical of the shrill and reductive level at which complex issues are discussed on Twitter but few people ignored it, which might have been best for all concerned, in retrospect.

In the social media age, Lineker and many other celebrities have an almost pathological need to share their opinions on anything and everything, until it just becomes noise. This was never an issue with sports presenters before Twitter came along.

I don’t recall reading about Frank Bough’s thoughts on the Poll Tax or Jimmy Hill’s concerns over John Major’s policy on Europe.

We may never know and I’m not sure I’d have been that interested anyway, just as few people actually care what Gary Lineker thinks about immigration policy, beyond the handful of online zealots on the extremes of the debate.

Thankfully, we live in a society where people are free to indulge their mud-slinging, mouth-foaming, halo-polishing tendencies on social media to their heart’s consent and we are free to ignore them - as far as we’re able, at least, given the depressing amount of coverage given to stories about ‘what people reckon on Twitter’.

How this freedom affects Lineker’s professional responsibilities and perceptions of BBC impartiality was obviously one for his employers to deal with - far better than they have done - but I expect reports of ‘what Gary Lineker reckons on Twitter’ are set to continue for a while yet. Depending who you listen to, the BBC is either a hotbed of left-wing activists or a Tory government mouthpiece. Like it or not, Lineker has played into the hands of those who promote the former theory.

The absurd saturation coverage of Lineker’s tweets reached a point where I was almost grateful for the break afforded by news of actors having a night out the Oscars.

The Lineker row was being treated with the utmost gravity on news bulletins, which reported progress on the talks between the ex-footballer and the BBC as if they were updating us on some sort of peace summit in the Middle East.

Hopefully we can all now get some peace from this overblown nonsense.