Windfall gain for Scottish landlords!

Those idiots the SNP did it, in today's Budget, they "announced that, from April next year, business rates would be abolished for up to 120,000 small businesses and a further 30,000 companies would see rate cuts of between 25 per cent and 50 per cent".

Jesus H F***, have these people not heard of Ricardo's Law of Rent, which like all blinding insights seems totally obvious if you think about it for a few minutes?
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OK, you can choose here, follow the link and think for a few minutes, or just read on for a potted summary ...
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Under The Law of Rent, what will happen is:

The landlord will say "Great, under the old system, a small business who paid me £10,000 in rent was paying £4,000 in Business Rates, so his total bill was £14,000. That means he'll have £4,000 to spare in future, so at the next rent review I'll up the rent to £14,000".

Sure, some small businesses own their own premises, great, they've got a static £4,000 tax cut, but their marginal rate of tax has not changed, so unlike a reduction in VAT or income/corporation tax rates (which, even if not self-financing because of Laffer effects, would at least motivate the small business to work harder, expand, maybe take on extra staff) cutting Business Rates has no positive effect on economic activity.

Even worse, what happens if the shop next door becomes vacant and our small business wants to expand?

Let's say they own the first shop and want buy the second, they will not qualify as a small business any more, and will face additional tax of £8,000. And if they are renting the first shop and want to rent the second, then they will have to pay the higher rent of £14,000 (to be able to compete with another small business) as well as the extra £8,000 tax.