“The Scottish economy and social contract could act as an example to the UK as a whole – it’s already being attacked for just those reasons. If austerity is a cruel confidence trick perpetrated by ideologues and wealth-addicts, Scotland stepping back from the con shows Wales and England another path and shames the looters at work now.”

From MSP Annie Wells at a salary of £60k a year, she’d have to pay another 29p  a week.

That won’t buy you a Twix.

Like the Baby Box the change in tax bands isn’t about the numbers.

Conservatives and Unionists don’t actually care if boxes change infant mortality or if new tax bands give the bulk of people a respite. What they care is that it is different and it is happening, and that is intolerable.

For all they may fume, there is nothing they can do about it.

As it’s revealed that Anna Soubry has faced messages that she be ‘hanged in public’ we should remember not just Gandhi’s oft-quoted notion that British civilisation “would be a good idea” but that “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

Let’s not get contaminated by the sheer ridiculousness of the ‘debate’.

While it’s easy to laugh at the absurdism of Brexiteer nonsense – a more serious landmark has been reached. One: of the idea of progressive taxation within Scotland has been broached and will now become a debating point, a high-water for discussion, and the second: more important concept that has entered public debate (and god knows why this has taken so long) is the idea of taxes raised here that aren’t spent on toxic ‘UK’ priorities.

That these are taxes raised for Scotland exclusively is a new magic.

These simple concepts will run and run ‘all the way through’.

The idea of meritocracy may be an assumption running through Conservative closed circles, but it’s a highly contested idea in Scottish public life. Scottish nationalists are (rightly) accused of living in echo chambers, but this week showed the Tories own belligerent, privileged bubble to the world in harsh and simple figures.

A new title suggests itself: Patronising Bastards – How the Elites Betrayed Scotland.