“It’s the Freemasons – they’re trying to kill me!” This typically juicy line is one of many contained in an episode in the Inspector Morse television detective series, enticingly called “Masonic Mysteries” which recently had a repeat on UK screens.
    Such a disgraceful slur on freemasons was only one of many in which the programme depicted Masons as deeply involved in all kinds of criminal acts. The final outcome, not surprisingly, was that masonry was not involved at all. Thanks a lot.
    Similarly, another popular police TV series, The Bill, also recently conjured up the scriptwriter’s favourite masonic menu: lodge chums comprising a top cop, a dodgy councillor and a local “businessman” running massage parlours as a cover for prostitution.
    It is worth noting that the TV bosses do not produce “investigative” programmes on Freemasonry. To do that, they would require evidence. They could be sued. Why dig for what does not exist when producing fictional programmes is so much easier?
    This is where the “perception” about Freemasonry is conjured up. Now the Home Office has responded to the Select Committee report on Freemasonry in Public Life (see page 6).
    The Government’s reaction is to plough ahead with a register of Freemasons in the judiciary, with local government and even parliament itself is to come under scrutiny.
    It will be a most dangerous parliamentary precedent if law abiding citizens who are members of a legal organisation, are singled out for special treatment by being forced on to a register, without any evidence of malpractice, but purely on a “perception”. And a register that might, as the government makes clear, even become publicly available.
    It is appalling that, in a democratic society, many Freemasons in the judiciary – particularly the police service – would be forced to choose between their careers or the Craft.
    Does any Chief Constable have any proof that any policeman who is also a Freemason received favours because he is a Mason? If not, then why don’t they back their colleagues instead of going along with this witchhunt?
    It is clear that a register could destroy the careers of many policemen. Indeed, those arguing for such a register can have no doubt that this will be the end result in many cases. Only the self-deluded would think otherwise.
    It is sinister that Freemasons, who have sworn an oath to uphold the laws set by parliament, should be forced by that same parliament to register just like paedophiles.
    Already the battle is being won. Cambridgeshire County Council, acting on legal advice, has scrapped its register, and Essex County Council is also having second thoughts (see page 7).
    As part of the fight back, it is likely that Grand Lodge will initiate an appeal under the new Human Rights Act that comes into UK law on 2 October.
    Why don’t our critics talk to organisations such as the Red Cross (see page 7) about its “perception” of Freemasonry? Or the St John Ambulance Brigade (see page 11) Or to even leave the cloistered environs of Westminster and meet rank and file Freemasons?
    We have had enough. It is time we hit back. Freemasonry Today will be in the vanguard of this fight. But it requires all of us to band together and get stuck in. Leaving it to UGLE is no answer. They need our help to back them up in this relentless struggle.
    At the Quarterly Communications of Grand Lodge in June this year, the former restriction on individual Freemasons writing to the press – a ban going back 16 years - was lifted, but that issuing official statements and giving interviews remains, quite properly, with official spokesmen.
    That is a welcome development, but only action on behalf of us all will give it any meaning – or indeed any teeth.
    We must also back the many Provincial Information Officers who are valiantly putting forward the positive side of Freemasonry in their area.
   
    The question each of us has to ask ourselves is this: as Freemasons, are we mice or rotweilers? It is to be hoped that Grand Lodge has unleashed the latter on our detractors.
    Go get ‘em Brother Fido!
    John Jackson-Editor