it has been an issue of debate in certain quarters, whether or not freemasons should be compelled to reveal their membership before taking seats in the new Scottish Parliament. Personally, I think that if the administration is to be a success it is absolutely crucial they are compelled to do so.
In Inside the Brotherhood, Martin Short disclosed one of English masonry's best-kept secrets: the existence of two lodges in the Palace of Westminster, the Gallery Lodge, founded over 100 years ago by press and lobby correspondents, and the New Welcome Lodge, created in the 1920s at the suggestion of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII).
Labour politicians were hitherto blackballed when proposed as members of the Gallery Lodge and since the Labour Party had grown in popularity, the Craft stood to be condemned as the Tory Party in aprons.
Martin Short also divulged that there are many town-hall lodges where elected councillors, council officials, and outside contractors meet in masonic secrecy to strike deals and decide on suitable payments for ''services rendered''.
The fear generated by masonic involvement in a Scottish Parliament is that freemasonry crosses the party divide, making a mockery of the party system. It merely upholds a facade of democracy, fronting a form of pretended and controlled rivalry between masons in apparently opposing parties, but where a masonic elite can map out an agenda for their subordinate lackeys to follow, regulate the format of debate, and plot the outcome favourably for themselves, irrespective of how conflicting the purported ideals of the rivals in the party system appear.
Surely the electorate have a right to know who exactly it is they are voting for, and then to later be in a position to detect more readily the areas where major issues are being dubiously compromised by furtive operatives making important decisions away from the public eye in their citadels of silence.
William Burns,
18 Shore Road,
South Queensferry. May 10.
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