Few would argue that Scotland’s present pattern of land tenure is ideal. Around half of private land is owned by fewer than 500 individuals, corporates or pension funds. The vast estates date from two centuries ago when landlords, often clan chiefs, expelled the Scottish peasantry from their villages in the interests of ‘improvement’ – mainly to create sheep walks, deer-hunting estates or, latterly, forestry. Had we had a French Revolution, landed estates might have been broken up. But we didn’t, and they weren’t.

The idea that a group of pen-pushers in Edinburgh is going to create a new generation of small private landholdings is fanciful

As a result, the Scottish government has been trying to push through a retrospective revolution by using bureaucracy to enforce the division of large

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