You see yonder fellow called 'a lord,'

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Who struts, and stares, and all that;

Though hundreds worship at his word,

He's still just a coof (a ratbag) for all that:

For all that, and all that,

His medals, ribbons, titles and all that,

The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at all that.

- From Robbie Burns' A Man's a Man For A' That

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As a man and a columnist of independent mind I looked and laughed when the already shifty and noxious UK Labour figure Peter Mandelson was made 'Lord' Peter Mandelson.

Similarly, all Burns-minded Australians of independent mind looked and laughed (and perhaps seethed a little) when, incredibly, the strutting Scott Morrison was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), the nation's highest civilian honour, in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours List.

Burns the egalitarian was right about honours, medals, ribbons and titles, about how they are never given to the truly deserving and are just a superficial "tinsel show" that honest folk see through and laugh at.

Now, today, as I write, the honest man and woman of independent mind looks and laughs (a little cruelly, but understandably so) as first a hereditary Prince (now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor) and now 'Lord' Mandelson are found out and shamed by the Epstein scandals.

Rousing and splendid even just as words read off a page, Burns' hymn to the common man and to decency takes on an extra heft and splendour when it is sung.

On the recent Burns Day (the day is January 25, the day before our Invasion Day) I engaged in the ritual of going to YouTube for Midge Ure's profound rendition of it at the opening of the Scottish........

© Canberra Times