If Burns were here now?

Its yon nicht again and the merry ploughboy's poetry resonates as much as ever. As usual, everyone wants a piece of the cake. Even Tories. Even Lib Dems. However, even the nation's schoolkids who are taking part in school Burns' Suppers up and down the land could tell you that he... saw Scotland's rightful place in the world as her own nation, detested bigotry and the idle rich and saw no need to be bound by a 'Christian' view of monogamy.

To mark the bard's day, Tocasaid teamed up with the same crack team of graphic design whizzkids who presented us with Labour's highly sophisticated Scottish election campaign last year.

A Parcel of Rogues or Address to a Haggis?

Lib Dems? Scottish Labour? Unionists? Burns' stomach would've turned at the thought of these charlatans and liars. And the list is a long one.... Danny boy Alexander, Michael Moore, Jim Murphy, Alastair Darling, Douglas Alexander, Tom Harris, Iain Gray and Scotland's only Tory MP, David Mundane. Are they 'anti-Scottish'? Well, they're certainly doing SFA for the poorest in Scotland. As for independence - they can't make up their minds whether or not the referendum is illegal or whether Salmond should call it a.s.a.p. What a shower.

Is There For an Honest Poverty?

It could be argued that Burns had an influence on later Scottish working class champions - Hardie, Connolly, Maxton, Maclean and Jimmy Reid of late. How many of them saw the Scottish labour movement's main priority as 'saving the Union'? Morever, we hear from current Labour stooges the same old mantra of 'Tartan Tories' and of Scottish nationalists being 'insular'. Who was it though that saw the children of asylum seekers snatched from their homes in dawn raids and thrown in Dungavel Prison? Labour? How progressive.

Lay the proud usurpers low! or The Creed of Poverty

As to the English riots and the Con Dems of London? Well perhaps a verse of Scots Wha Hae?

 Lay the proud usurpers low!
    Tyrants fall in every foe!
    Liberty's in every blow! -
    Let us do or die!

Or, the Creed of Poverty?

In politics if thou would'st mix,
      And mean thy fortunes be;
    Bear this in mind--be deaf and blind;
      Let great folks hear and see.

Lastly, it would stretch things too far to claim that Burns advocated gay rights. However, as a bard with liberty and equality oozing out of his work, I don't think the bedroom habits of others would've bothered him. Especially when his own oats were well sown in many a furrow. The unholy coalition of god-botherers and bigots who are losing sleep over the proposed law to give lesbians and gays the right to marry would surely have seen a verse or two composed in ridicule.

My Luve is like...?