Remember when you were a child and relatives sent you money in birthday cards, just because you were you? Imagine that happened every week. Every Friday morning the government handed you £150 to spend however you wanted. Why? Because you’re worth it. This is the basic premise of the universal basic income, an idea that has been around since the days of Thomas Paine and which will be trialled this year by the Scottish government in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife and Ayrshire. “As we look ahead to the next decade and beyond,” Nicola Sturgeon said in her programme for government in September, “it is an idea that merits deeper consideration”.

A universal basic income seems at first glance to be an answer to some of the