The National:

PICTURE this: you’re a right-wing Unionist absolutely fuming at the idea of the Scottish Greens and SNP going into government together.

You’re determined to show the world how ridiculous this extremely pragmatic accord is, and you’ve got a large platform on which to do it.

Step in Guido Fawkes, the gossip site masquerading as a political commentator with lots of friends in Tory-blue ties down in Westminster.

Raging at the idea of the “transformative” parliament the Greens and SNP expect, some anonymous staffer at Guido tweeted at the tenants’ union Living Rent, who had in turn tweeted to celebrate the news that rent controls will be introduced in Scotland “by the end of 2025”.

“Adam Smith's homeland plans to implement rent controls,” Guido Fawkes tweeted, obviously assuming that the Scot sometimes known as the “Father of Capitalism” had views which aligned with their own.

But what they obviously thought was a mighty clever remark soon backfired, as everyone including the First Minister lined up to point out just how wrong they were.

“How to prove you haven’t read Adam Smith without saying you haven’t read Adam Smith”, Nicola Sturgeon responded, topping it off with a laughing emoji.

And not only has Guido Fawkes not read Adam Smith, it seems they’ve never even really heard anything about him. The pioneering economist had a more than famous distaste for the landed class.

In his seminal work The Wealth of Nations, Smith said there were three orders of people: “Those who live by rent, those who live by wages, and those who live by profit.”

He goes on: “[Those who live by rent] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own.

READ MORE: SNP members to be given ‘consultative ballot’ on Greens deal as NEC backs deal

“That indolence, which is the natural effect of the ease and security of their situation, renders them too often not only ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind which is necessary in order to foresee and understand the consequences of any public regulation.”

Indolent, ignorant, and unable to understand the consequences of public regulation. Hardly the glowing view of landlords which Guido Fawkes wrongly assumed Adam Smith to have had.

The National: Adam Smith’s core concept was a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work

In fact, Smith dedicates an entire chapter (more than 45,000 words) to the concept of “the Rent of Land”.

In the opening paragraph of that chapter, Smith writes: “The landlord endeavours to leave [the tenant] no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient ...

“This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more.”

Perhaps his most famous quote on rent, which isn’t even from that chapter, says: “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”

Smith clearly viewed landlords as greedy, taking what they did not earn.

The idea that he might not approve of modest rent controls meant to prevent price hikes brought on by the likes of AirBnB take-overs in central Edinburgh is laughable.

As Assistant Professor Deborah Boucoyannis wrote on the London School of Economics’ blog: “Smith targets rentier practices by the rich and powerful as distorting economic outcomes. And although he strongly criticises some regulation ... it is regulation favoring the rich and powerful that he attacks.”

It seems the right-wing London gossip website that employed the person who thought James Hamilton was in the SNP also employs someone who has precisely zero idea about Adam Smith but likes to name drop him anyway to make themselves seem smart. Quelle surprise.

And the Jouker is far from the only one to have noticed: