Parliament: Select Committee - Masons `had role in Stalker case'

FREEMASONRY WITHIN the police may have played a "significant" role in the Stalker affair and corruption in the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad, MPs have concluded.

www.independent.co.uk...
Now, as in the forum I got this link from, many folks here probably will only be surprised this isn't in the Secret Societies forum.

However, this particular line from the article took my attention:

The MPs concluded that although Freemasonry was not a primary cause of the problems within the squad, "we cannot entirely exclude the possibility that it may have been a contributory factor".

According to my High School understanding of Grammar, that basically translates as, we have no reason to be suspicious of them, but we've put them on the list anyway.
Not entirely without reason mind you, a crime was disbanded that conatined five senior members who were Masons. They were disbanded for allegations of malpractice.
I'll admit, not being in the UK, I'm not familiar with the case.

My issue with this, is they basically state they have no reason to be suspicious of the group, but the are anyway, apparently to support a bill that requires Masons to declare their membership.
I know that UK Masons tend to be more subdued about their membership that the American branch, or at least that's my understanding.

Something about this strikes me as wrong, and I wanted to get some different opinions on this.

reply to post by RuneSpider


a biased reporter to say the least.

It appears at least this reporter has a beef with masons if not the whole paper. I can't imagine UK freemasons having so different a way of doing business than us. If any group of US freemasons was found out to be conspiring to do anything for personal gain using freemasonry, they would be tried in a masonic court, and if found guilty, removed from masonry forever. It just sounds a bit too much like some made up facts to support the idea that all masons are "in on it".

reply to post by network dude


Which is pretty much my point, the article doesn't say why they have any suspicion of Masonry, and all I meant about the observation of the differences in the UK and American branches would be my understanding that the UK branch has experienced being persecuted, something the US Masons havn't as such, not in any large numbers.
This keeps them more secretive than the US.