We don't know if you've noticed, but the UK is in a uniquely precarious position right now.

The SNP are rampant in Scotland after securing significant mandates in recent elections, and the Brexit vote has driven a wedge between north and south of the border as voters backed different sides.

There is serious talk about a United Ireland, with the Irish Taoiseach warning Brexit negotiators a referendum vote could be on the cards.

So, with this in mind, you average celebrity's PR team is working extra hard to ensure their star does not put their foot in it with an ill-judged comment which alienates half of Britain.

STV News looks at the notable figures don't seem to have got the memo, and others who have spoken before they thought on controversial British issues and lived to regret it.

Alan Cumming recently had to apologise after blaming the Brexit vote on "stupid English people" in an interview with The Herald.

The Scots actor suffered the now customary social media backlash after the comments regarding the vote to leave Europe, after a majority of voters in Scotland backed remaining at Brussels.

Former Labour MP and Scottish Vote Leave campaigner Tom Harris told the Daily Express: "If the English were stupid to vote for Leave then what does that make the one million Scots who voted Leave?"

After a couple of days of backlash, the Good Wife actor rowed back from his comments.

In an admittedly less than fulsome statement of contrition, Cumming said: "I apologise if my 'stupid English people' comment caused offence. I guess I'm just a daft jock who assumes people still find humour amusing."

The Wimbledon champion tennis player is the darling of press, having done what no British player had done since 1977 in winning a singles title at the all-England club. (He now has two).

Widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes to come from this isle, he has hit the heights in an era of tennis with perhaps the best ever selection of players.

But it wasn't always like this, and in 2006 a 19-year-old Murray made a joke about the English football team that would sour his relationship with some tennis fans for a good while.

Responding to a jibe from a journalist about Scotland's non-attendance at the World Cup, he said he would be supporting "whoever England were playing against".

Cue huge media and fan backlash and Murray was forced to win Wimbledon before he got the British public back on side.

Its one thing for a tennis player to profess anti-English football leanings, but probably not a good idea for the First Minister of Scotland.

In 2006, he said he would not back England and instead support "other teams in the various games I will manage to watch."

The comments led to a anger and an English company even cancelling their attendance at a Scottish tourism event.

The actor is best known for his hard man roles in films such as Sexy Beast and for attempting to intimidate viewers into betting during breaks in Premier league football matches.

But he got into hot water thanks to a joke while he was hosting BBC satire show Have I Got News For You in 2013 when he said Scotland exports tramps and asked the audience if "we should just tell the Scots to bugger off".

The remarks came in a section on Scottish independence, and sparked around 100 complaints to the BBC and TV watchdog Ofcom.

The former Top Gear presenter has a rap sheet as long as his paycheck when it comes to insulting other nations.

In fact he is something of a renaissance man when it comes to landing himself in trouble with an irate foreign ambassador.

For brevity, we will list only a handful of his comments against the other nations within Britain.

Unlike Alan Cumming and Andy Murray, Clarkson eschewed apology and has continued in the same vein to almost weekly controversy and, lets face it, huge success.

Another one not famed for his deft, even-handed approach is historian and TV personality David Starkey.

In an interview he said the the SNP's symbol was like the swastika, and likened the party's view of the English to Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jewish people.

Starkey also argued that supporters were "incapable of recognising that this is national socialism".

Kirsten Oswald, the SNP MP, took him to task saying: "He has become little more than a serial utterer of bile and bilge."