PERHAPS, in homage to the Flight of the Irish Earls in the 17th century, we could call this one “the Flight of the Chiels” – the rich ones, at least.

As it became clear, following Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget, that there was gold to be had in England for the super-rich and those who desired to reach that status, an odious and wealthy cast of Scots graspers emerged, desperate to get their hands on some of the loot.

As they beseeched Nicola Sturgeon to match the UK Chancellor’s windfall for top earners, you were reminded of the zombies with their distorted features pressed up against the supermarket windows in George A Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead.

The UK Government’s decision to boost growth by cutting taxes for the richest in society has already been described by Nicola Sturgeon as a “catastrophic disaster” and “morally repugnant”. Senior politicians have an entire lexicon of outraged superlatives to hand when their opponents persist with questionable policies. You got the sense though that the First Minister had been genuinely shocked by the reckless abandon of Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget.

And also the brazen immorality of it: choosing not to help those who will most require it in the months ahead and choosing instead to help those who already have the means to cope with the worst of the cost of living crisis.

The first of these opulent souls seeking to slurp from Kwarteng’s trough was Roddy Dunlop KC, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. I can’t be sure what the average salary is for a senior KC in Scotland, but let’s say that it takes you well beyond that point where you have to check price tags. We’ll start at several hundred thousand a year. It’s one thing for a rich man to express a private desire to become even richer. It’s quite something else, almost breathtaking, to see him express such desires in public.

“I’ve lived in Scotland all my days. I love this place. I do not want to leave. But if there is this level of tax difference I’d have to consider it,” he said. He had set his eyes on Northumberland which would leave him an easy commute to his chambers in Edinburgh. “If you could live somewhere that taxed you at 60% or somewhere else within 10 miles that taxed you at 10%, what would you choose?”

Dunlop later clarified that he would not be leaving Scotland and had only been intending to spark debate about the possible consequences of the tax disparity.

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For some, the point at which they can have enough money will always remain on the horizon, tantalisingly out of reach.

Another advocate, Jonathan Brown, introduced an auxiliary strand – the rich man’s bribe: “He could straightforwardly do it, save himself a material amount and the Scottish Government would lose the whole of his tax contribution.” Run that past me again. So, unless the Scottish Government, elected by predominantly middle-to-low income people, accedes to the whims of a rich few, we could see them leave town.

Last week, these people were happy with their lot: making lots of money; living in nice townhouses; living the dream among the beautiful people in one of the most affluent cities in Europe. In the time it takes to say “isn’t it about time we had gold bathroom fittings, darling”, we discovered that the good must not have been that good after all.

Benny Higgins, the multi-millionaire who once headed up Tesco Bank, also wanted Nicola Sturgeon to enact this levelling-up exercise for the rich. Higgins is an executive for the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the richest landowners in Europe. His accumulated wealth in these roles, though, doesn’t seem to have sated his desire for more: “A 1p gap may be seen by me and my peers as tolerable and understandable, but a 6p gap would be different … the effect on high earners means jeopardy for the Scottish business community.”

Note the use of “me and my peers” here by Benny the Bolter. Let’s unpack this a little. Higgins seems to consider only those among his income bracket to be among his “peers”.

The cheekiest of the lot, though, was Jim McColl, a multi-millionaire businessman and resident of Monaco – a living arrangement he attributes solely to his, ahem, love of racing cars. Would this be the same Jim McColl whose companies have already benefited from the Scottish Government in boat-building contracts?

On and on, they came – this privileged chorus: Sir George Mathewson, a former chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, the bank that nearly broke the UK economy; Sir John Kay, the esteemed economist and academic who holds more chairs than IKEA. Like Benny Higgins, he has also served as an economic adviser to the Scottish Government.

All these rich and brilliant men have reaped the benefits of having been educated and resident in Scotland for many years. Not until now have they ever said that handing out massive tax breaks to the super-rich is the best route to stimulating the Scottish or UK economies. Yet all it took was one desperate measure of a desperate government, designed to increase inequality, and they were suddenly bustling to the head of the queue telling their government that being rich and successful can never be enough.

What will they all do if Labour form the next UK Government and restores the top rate of tax? Will they scuttle back over the Border to take up residence in the homes they left behind and rented out as another source of income?

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Their collective responses and instincts were much, much more depressing than Kwarteng’s gifts to the richest 1% of UK taxpayers. Nowhere in their strategies was there mention of another proven way of stimulating the economy: Paying workers higher wages; enabling them to live in better homes with wider access to affordable mortgages and rents; giving them long-term job security.

All of this, over time, breeding confidence and unlocking spending power to the benefit of local businesses and British manufacturing. All of it proven to improve and restore people’s long-term mental and physical health.

Instead, thinking only of short-term financial gain, they seem impervious to the social and fiscal consequences of widening an already yawning inequality gap which will result from Kwarteng’s mini budget.

In the Gospel of Luke, we are told about the fate of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus who, day after day, lay starving outside his home. The rich man ended up in Hades, not because he was rich, but because he was impervious to the suffering of his fellow human being. Nicola Sturgeon called it right. This is indeed morally repugnant.