Robert Burns: was the beloved poet a 'Weinsteinian sex pest'?

Ahead of this year’s Burns Night, the 18th-century bard has come under harsh scrutiny from Liz Lochhead over his treatment of women

A year ago, Nicola Sturgeon marked Robert Burns’s 25 January birthday by posting a video celebrating his poetry, praising Scotland’s national bard for his “enduring values of equality, inclusion and internationalism” and inviting Scots to toast his memory at that evening’s Burns Night parties.

After an intervening year that has seen the rise of #MeToo, Scotland’s first minister may feel a need to insert a feminist caveat or two as she gives the address on Thursday at a Burns supper hosted by the SNP’s Govan branch, after Liz Lochhead recently called Burns “Weinsteinian” and “a sex pest”, and prompted a controversy that has raged in the Scottish press for the past fortnight.