HEAR that? Was it the sound of Rabbie Burns spinning in his grave at an unforgivable misuse of his egalitarian, republican anthem? Or was it the sound of the Her Majesty the Queen being sensationally trolled?

As Her Maj left the debating chamber at Holyrood on Saturday, she did so to a bagpipe rendition of A Man’s a Man for A’ That, Burns’s classic declamation against defamation.

True, it was performed by Sheena Wellington at the Parliament’s official opening in 1999, and again by Midge Ure in 2016. But that doesn’t stop it being one of the most splendid expressions of a socialist message pre-Marx.