Scotland's lairds cannot simply cite their own wealth as proof of their right to rule, a leading campaigner for land reform said yesterday.

Legal geographer Andy Wightman poured cold water on the aristocracy’s claims its Scottish Land and Estates (SLE) lobby group produced research insisting that private estates generate hundreds of millions of pounds for the Scottish economy each year.

Just over 500 families control around half of Scotland’s land mass — the result of the infamous Highland clearances in which eighteenth-century aristocrats seized crofters’ lands for sheep runs, evicting up to 2,000 families a day.