Month: February 2019

  

 

Priyanka Gandhi, granddaughter of Indira and daughter of Rajiv, is stepping into the political fray in India. She won’t have much impact on the up and coming election which Narendra Modi’s party is expected to win, but she’s put a toe in the door by taking up a senior position with the Congress Party, associated with Indira and Rajiv, both former prime ministers and both murdered. So she’s got guts and is already facing a barrage of criticism and insults.

Born 12 January 1972 in Delhi with questionable birth times, either around 7.20pm or 2 am, she’s an ambitious and independent-minded Capricorn Sun square Uranus; with a sensitive and compassionate Saturn opposition Neptune (Moon); and a courageous, do-or-die determined Mars opposition Pluto square Mercury.

She’s nothing like as enduring a personality as her grandmother Indira, 19 November 1917, who was a Sun Scorpio square Uranus with Uranus opposition Saturn (and Neptune) in Leo. And she is under considerable pressure this year, more so next, with a fair risk of accidents, disasters and setbacks – from tr Uranus conjunct her Mars/Saturn midpoint this June, and again later in the year; and even more so when her Solar Arc Mars is conjunct her Saturn early in 2021 for another really major obstacle.  Assuming she comes through unscathed, she’ll get into a better phase thereafter.

  

 

The salacious details of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll’s lengthy, prurient and headline-grabbing divorce in 1963 are due for a rerun with a new biography and a BBC drama coming out. The Dirty Duchess as she became known, mainly on the basis of a polaroid of the headless man in her bed, one of the rumoured 88 men she slept with during her 12 year marriage to the Duke, which included two government ministers and three members of the Royal Family.

Born 1 December 1912 near Glasgow to a self-made millionaire father she had an extraordinary and event-filled life, starting with the standard unhappy rich-kid childhood, which left her with a stammer. She lost her virginity to David Niven at 15, becoming pregnant, presumably aborted it; and set sail as Debutante of the Year into several failed engagements, then marriage to a US financier which led to eight miscarriages and one still birth before she produced two children. In her late 30s she fell 40 feet down a lift shaft when visiting a chiropodist. After her marriage broke down and a replacement betrayed her, she was pursued by the broke Duke of Argyll and married him having paid over a hefty dowry. Which 12 year match was not improved by his unpredictable temper, alcoholism, reliance on prescription drugs and gambling. It was a very one sided divorce and she appears to have been unable to give the other side of the story. Three weeks after the divorce he married an American heiress.

Her divorce kept the tabloids riveted for weeks and the judge wrote 160 pages of condemnation of her behaviour.  She died in poverty aged 80.

She was a Sun Mars in Sagittarius in a hard-edged, unfair-treatment opposition to Saturn. She had a confident Mercury Jupiter in Sagittarius as well in a pushy opposition to Pluto; and the signature Uranus opposition Neptune of her generation, which was not always renowned for good judgement. And she had a fairly gothic Yod of Uranus sextile Mars inconjunct Pluto which would tend to push her to extremes and make her manipulative.  Her Venus in socially ambitious Capricorn is sparsely aspected if at all by a maybe trine to a Virgo Moon.

By all accounts she was a snobbish woman with a staggering sense of entitlement but still. She was slut-shamed while the grasping Duke got off scot free despite having behaved just as badly.

    

 

 

Untying the Gordian knot of the Ireland problem is where the majority of Brexit attention is being focussed. Though heaven knows there are multifarious other worries about customs borders and future trade requiring preparation which appear to be sliding under the radar.

As far as Ireland is concerned, Leo Varadakar, the Irish leader, is in Brussels this week to meet Juncker et co to discuss a possible no-deal Brexit and how to tackle Theresa May’s request for a renegotiation.

The relationship chart between the Republic of Ireland (18 April 1949 midnight Dublin) and the EU is oddly the one showing the most strain over the next three years. It has a composite New Moon so is a significant bond; but is also strained with a composite Yod of Saturn Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Venus. Considerable confusion is showing between the two from March 29^th this year onwards till late 2020 as tr Pluto squares the Neptune; with more discouraging pressure in 2020/2021 as tr Pluto squares Saturn; and it will be sagging with disappointment in 2021/22 with tr Neptune conjunct the apex Venus.

The relationship chart between the UK and Ireland 1949 is very chained together at the best of times which produces a good deal of resentment, with a composite Saturn opposition Mercury square Pluto. It’s in for a considerable jolt from late March to mid April with tr Uranus is an irritable and insecure conjunction to the composite Mars and in a highly-strung opposition to Neptune Jupiter. Thereafter there’s not much major movement until 2021 when there’s more sign of a rupture or change in relations with tr Uranus square the composite Uranus.

Varadakar looks fairly relieved around the late March/early April phase.

The relationship between Northern Ireland, 7^th December 1922 3.28pm, and the EU is due for a major jolt come July 2019; and a larger upheaval in 2021 – with tr Uranus square the composite Pluto first, then tr Pluto trine the composite Uranus respectively.

The UK/Northern Ireland relationship will also alter radically come July of this year, on and off into early 2020; and will sag badly in 2020 with tr Neptune opposition the composite Jupiter Saturn and square Uranus.

I’d hazard a guess there will be some sort of fudge pushing matters back three months, then the real tumble-out will happen in 2021.

Add On:   The possibility of a united Ireland is remote, certainly in the near future. The relationship chart between North and South has an aggravated and suspicious composite Mars opposition Saturn Neptune square a gamer-playing Jupiter. There’ll be a dip in relations between them in 2020 with tr Neptune square the Jupiter, which will worsen considerably in 2022/23 as tr Neptune is conjunct the composite Mars and opposition Saturn.

A heartfelt piece in today’s Telegraph by Liam Halligan:   ‘For someone of my mixed heritage, the pain associated with tension between Britain and Ireland is seared into my soul. And the anguish as the precious rapprochement of recent years is threatened is made far worse by knowing that today’s Irish border issue is eminently solvable.

For the sad truth is this essentially technical problem is being exploited by an increasingly irate anti-Brexit coalition across the UK, Ireland and among Brussels Eurocrats. Their cynical judgment is that if fears about a return to The Troubles are whipped up enough, then the biggest expression of democracy in the history of these islands might yet be thwarted.’

‘Brussels, meanwhile, wants Britain trapped in the customs union so UK consumers and businesses keep paying the common external tariff on imports from outside the EU. Four fifths of those revenues – billions annually – go directly to Brussels.

The customs union stops London cutting bespoke trade deals suiting UK, rather than French or German interests, with the rest of the world. ‘

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/02/02/backstop-politics-economics-important-easily-solved-issue-world/

And there is a searing wrap-round of the whole Brexit farrago in the Washington Post.

‘Britain is one of the richest and most advanced democracies in the world. It is currently locked in a room, babbling away to itself hysterically while threatening to blow its own kneecaps off. This is what nationalist populism does to a country. ‘

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-collective-madness-behind-britains-latest-brexit-plan/2019/01/31/48d4d67e-2578-11e9-81fd-b7b05d5bed90_story.html?utm_term=.64ab41b382f3