Earlier this week, we published Jenni Lang’s Reply to the Toast to the lassies given at the Edinburgh South Burns Supper.  We said we’d put up Andy Wiliamson’s original toast to which she was replying when we got it. So here it is. Enjoy.

“Thank you everyone for such a wonderful evening. Thank you to Rebecca for organising and for the team working for providing such wonderful service. 

So it has fallen to me to give the Toast to the Lassies this evening. 

I have to start with a confession. I am actually from England. 

That’s not the confession. The confession is that this is my first ever Burns’ night dinner. 

And I confess that I am not an expert in Burns’ poetry. When I first moved to Scotland, I thought ‘mice and men’ were the two main ingredients in haggis. 

I cannot, either, confess to being an expert on women. 

When Rebecca asked me to give this toast, she said they were looking for someone who knew as much about Burns as they did about women, so in that respect, she picked absolutely the right person. 

I would like it also stated on the record, that getting asked to give this toast is something of a poisoned chalice. 

For anyone desiring a political career, it’s quite a tightrope to be asked to walk. To stand in a room full of political women and make jokes about gender differences, armed only with a book of quotes from an eighteenth century farmer. 

So the bar to success in this speech is to make jokes, talk about poetry, and avoid being cancelled. 

Still, in reading Burns, it’s very clear that many of his ideas about women are universal, as are his ideas on politics. Reading some of his poems, it was striking how the world he was describing is not much different from the world of 2025. In the Rights of Women, for example, he says: 

“While Europe’s eye is fix’d on mighty things,

The fate of empires and the fall of kings;

While quacks of State must each produce his plan,

And even children lisp the Rights of Man;

Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,

The Rights of Woman merit some attention.” 

Burns understood – like the proto-Lib Dem that he was – that everything has to be in balance. However, he got a key detail wrong. The opposite of the Rights of Women isn’t the Rights of Man. 

I’m speaking from personal experience here as a married man with two small children. I can personally attest that on occasions I have tested the boundaries of what my wife will put up with. 

Whether it’s telling her that – after a long General election campaign, a Council by-election requires me almost immediately to be away from home in the evenings again. Or times when I’ve stayed in the pub a little later than I probably should have.   

In those instances, it’s very clear that the opposite of Women’s Rights is Men’s Wrongs. 

Burns must have had some similar experiences, as he said: 

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears 

Her noblest work she classes, 

Her prentice han’ she try’d on man, An’ then she made the lasses.

However, the more Burns I read, the more two things became clear. Firstly, he had a deep love and respect for women. Secondly, that Burns had never met a woman in politics. When Burns said of women: 

“Their voices blend in music sweet,

Their hearts are always kind,

He clearly hadn’t spent an evening door knocking, or spoken at a hustings, or been on Twitter.

I’d like to also mention at this point that it was a woman who during the General Election campaign told me on social media that I look like Elmer Fudd. Her heart certainly wasn’t always kind. 

So call it ego, or Sassenach bravado, but I thought I would give old Robert Burns a bit of an update. 

In Praise of the Lassies of South Edinburgh

Ladies and gents, I take the floor,
To toast the lassies we all adore.
In Edinburgh South, where values align,
Our women, like Jean Brodie, all in their prime.

From Morningside to Liberton’s crest,
Our lassies lead and give their best.
In rain or shine through our streets they trundle,
Keeping the drizzle off the Citizen bundle.
And while I’m sure they do it with affection
They’re hoping for a year with no election.

Our South Edinburgh women are a fierce cabal,
Rebecca, Faith, Bridget, Alison, Pauline, and Val.
And I urge every man to make the right decision And surround himself with liberal women.

Old Rabbie thought women need decorum and admiration,
Our modern lasses instead bring transformation.
With compassion deep and a certain flair,
They handle it all with style and care.

In Edinburgh South, they reach for the sky,
From Colinton even to Dubai.
So let’s raise a glass, both far and near,
To the lassies, the ones we hold most dear!

So if you’ll join me in raising a toast to the lasses – I think we can all agree with Burns when he said: 

“The sweetest hours that e’er I spend, 

Are spent amang the lasses,”

To the lasses!

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings