A warm welcome to The Scottish Jacobite Party web site.

My name is John Black and I'm the leader of the party.

Tony Brodie and Karen Wilkie are the other two members. Tony drives a taxi in Helensburgh and is a former BT employee. Karen is a student at Glasgow University and hopes to become a teacher.

I believe in small government and three is the smallest number required to form a political party in Britain. A membership programme would distract us from the real purpose of the exercise which is getting your vote on May 3rd. In the privacy of the voting booth, you can vote for whoever you like, whoever captures your imagination. Party membership is irrelevant. Having no members cuts down on the paperwork and the overhead.

We don't accept donations.

That's because we don't have a bank account.

Your money would be an embarrasment. We have no way to process your cash.

We did try to set up a bank account in 2005. The Bank of Scotland thought about it for three months then decided that we didn't qualify! The competition on the other side of Colquhoun Square, The Royal Bank of Scotland, lost our application. I asked about it last year. They said they would have a look and give me a call. I haven't heard from them since. They are already making billions, why should they worry about new customers?

No cash for peerages here then.

I was born in Kettle, Fife. Went to school in Chirnside, Spittal, Killearn, Balfron, Hermitage Academy, Helensburgh and the Vale of Leven Academy, Alexandria. I was paid by the State for the 4th and 5th years at school and at University in Glasgow. After graduation I moved to North America; to Vancouver for three years then Portland, Oregon for thirty three years.

I returned to Scotland in 2000 to Helensburgh since my dad was still alive and getting on a bit. I'm 67 and considered no longer fit for purpose, consigned to the scrap heap of productive society. I have a pension from the States but the exchange rate has taken a dive over the last year. Cheap Christmas shopping trips to New York mean harder times on an income fixed in US dollars.

So the budget for this effort is limited to one hundred quid.

The mouse is that technological marvel now part of the everyday life of most of us. Can imaginative use of the internet and a very limited budget conquer the world, or our wee corner of it?

I have a degree in philosophy from Glasgow University which must make me a philosopher. As far as I know the degree wasn't revoked when I reached 65 so I am still allowed to think, to have ideas. I am

    A Dealer in Fine Ideas
    A Peddler of Dreams

I have a dream that we can do better in Scotland.

With all of the Independence rhetoric that is amuck in the media there is the illusion that Scotland is on the brink of a new age of enlightenment.

The University of Edinburgh is going to make this happen if they can raise £350 million. This is a considerable sum of money, almost enough for a deposit on a new parliament building. Ideas aren't part of the effort. It seems that all you need for enlightenment is large sums of cash and figures of the intellectual stature of David Hume, Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid,Lord Kames, Adam Ferguson will appear out of the woodwork.

The following quote from The Scottish Enlightenment by Alexander Broadie is revealing; "I begin by focusing on what I take to be the two essential features of Enlightenment.

• The first is its demand that we think for ourselves, and not allow ourselves to develop the intellectual vice of assenting to something simply because someone with authority has sanctioned it.
• Secondly, Enlightenment is characterised by the social virtue of tolerance, in that, in a enlightened society, people are able to put their ideas into the public domain without fear of retribution from political, religious or other such authorities that have the power to punish those whose ideas they disapprove of."

Time for a pop quiz:-
         Are both of these conditions being met in Scotland today?
        Is one of the conditions being satisfied?
         Are neither of the conditions true?

The SNP have set a target of £1 million for their campaign war chest for the Holyrood elections to have "a level playing field" with the other parties.

Read the Author's note by Michael Russell at the beginning of his book with Dennis MacLeod "Grasping the Thistle" and you find "If there is anything in this book which contradicts any part of that portfolio or strategy therefore I wish to make it clear that the SNP portfolio and strategy will, in my actions and statements as a candidate, take absolute precedence."

To be an SNP candidate in the May elections, Michael Russell has made a public oath not to have any ideas. He had to do that because the SNP don't believe in the democratic development of political thought and ideas. That one sentence negates his 32 year membership of the SNP and the entire content of the 255 pages of book and adds another voice to the Alex Salmond backup choir of political castrati.

Want to try the quiz again?:-
         Are both of these conditions being met in Scotland today?
        Is one of the conditions being satisfied?
        Are none of the conditions true?

The SNP don't need a million pounds. The playing field was already level. None of the parties have any ideas. The Conservatives under David Cameron? And their policies are? New Labour don't know since Tony hasn't told them yet. Ming is still trying to work out how to stand up and talk at the same time so you're not going to get much there. Mind you, he was good when we were at the Uni. Same group as John Smith and Donald Dewar. But that was a while ago.

So The Scottish Jacobite Party campaign will be based on ideas.

Some big ideas, some little ones. Ideas are slippery things. Some arrive fully developed. Others have to breathe the oxygen of reality for a while like a fine wine as the different characteristics of that particular cru come together and create the magic of the bouquet. Some form the foundation for blocks of other ideas that rise up in structures that stand the test of time where the last idea, the keystone, needs all of the previous blocks to fulfill its purpose.

My philosophy is of simple things.

The nature of democracy, how we interact as a society, the potential of a group of people and how we release that potential.

Most complex problems have a simple solution. It is in the nature of man to make the simple complex. Any long term human activity has people who mythologise the complexity of their task. It is a natural route to self fulfilment. A jargon or language develops which excludes the understanding of a casual passerby. We create experts, consultants. Specialists in seeing through the layers of camouflage that hide the simple in the complex.

What can you do with a hundred quid and a few ideas? Is this madness?

Certifiable madness according to Ruaridh Nicoll writing in the Observer "Are those any more barking than the words of Dr Black, who wants independence for Scotland, withdrawal from the EU and the annexation of a swath of England from Morecambe Bay to North Yorkshire?"

But then a London based paper would think that wouldn't they.

Ruaridh, son, its time you jacked in the day job and went back to Loch'a'chroisg and gazing over the slate-grey waters to the great mountains of Torridon. If you are going to be a novelist, you have to work out the torment in your soul. ( And while you are at it, check your biographical details. For someone born in the place, you should know that the Arbroath smokie is made from haddock. Its no made o' mackerel.)

Ruaridh, you have been seduced by English gold and the glamour of life in London. An affliction of Scots since 1603.

Just look at the current victims of this insidious disease. Gordon Brown, John Reid, Douglas Alexander, Menzies Campbell, Charles Kennedy, Alex Salmond to name but a few. We feel their pain.

Men enduring life in an alien land in the search for greater glory who would tell us how to live our lives north of the Border. Men who consider the challenge of running a country of only 5 million souls beneath their considerable talents. Gies a break. Bugger that for a laugh.

(It is indeed fortunate that it was Rangers and not Man U who persuaded Walter Smith that he had a higher calling than running the Scotland team. Now that Alex McLeish is in charge, a word. Eck, if you get a call from south of the border, buy a one way ticket.)

Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on July 23rd 1745 with seven companions. Born in Rome and brought up in Italy, this was the first time he had set foot in Scotland. His intention was to have his father placed on the throne of the United Kingdom as James the Third. He spent a year and a half in France preparing for an invasion of Britain that would have seen him arrive with gold and French troops. He had neither. He met with the clan chiefs who told him to go off home and leave them alone.

By sheer force of personality, he was able to persuade the chiefs to support his efforts and on August 19th after being rowed up Loch Shiel by the Seven Men of Moidart, he landed at Glenfinnan and raised the Jacobite standard.

One month later on September 21st 1745 he was in Prestonpans at the head of an army of 2,500 men. An army that decimated the redcoat troops of Sir John Cope in fifteen minutes.

Even today with modern methods of communication, gathering this number of men would be a remarkable achievement. It speaks volumes for his determination and charisma. Sixty days after landing on Eriskay, Bonnie Prince Charlie owned Scotland after defeating the troops of Johnny Cope.

The Scottish Jacobite Party have already done the pagentry of raising the standard at Glenfinnan on 8th July 2005. Its time to fast forward. This is being written on February 26th 2007. The election is on May 3rd. Sixty six days. Nae bother. Bags of time. Six days to spare.