In Afghanistan the largest British evacuation since the Second World War brought out 15,000 people, including 5,000 Britons and their families, plus more than 8,000 Afghan former UK staff and their families. But Dominic Raab, UK Foreign Secretary, has been getting it in the neck for the negligence of the Foreign Office in not preparing escape routes in advance through neighbouring countries with claims that up to 9,000 people eligible for rescue would be left behind. His disinclination to return from holiday earlier also cost vital days.
Born 25 February 1974 in Bucks, he has a legal background, was a Brexit-ing Minister and supporter of Boris Johnson for leader, so shoe-horned in as an ally. He has a Sun Pisces square Neptune inconjunct Pluto – supersonic ambitions but none too practical. His Mars in bulldozer Taurus is in an opportunistic square to Jupiter, an enthusiastic trine to Venus in ambitious Capricorn, semi-sextile Saturn in Gemini and inconjunct Uranus – which is quite a scattergun combination. In Brussels he was dubbed ‘turnip’ for his negotiating strategy – a play on the Dutch word for a boring vegetable.
His life is due a total upheaval in 2022/23 with a career-loss-making tr Pluto square his Jupiter/Saturn midpoint and square his Uranus as well. Even before then he’s sagging through this year.
None of which is of earth-shattering importance except he joins the long list of questionable Boris cronies, who stay in high position despite egregious failings.
What intrigued me was the Foreign Office itself since over the years it has been singularly inept in a variety of situations.
The modern version was put in place on 17 October 1968, which gives it a troublesome Yod of an arrogant/pushy Jupiter Pluto in Virgo sextile a charming, slippery, well-meaning but ineffectual Venus Neptune inconjunct a hard-hearted Saturn in Aries. The Saturn opposes a Libra Sun and Mercury, all of which can be self-defeating unless it finds a backbone. At the moment the Solar Arc Saturn is square the Mars which makes sense of this ‘setback’ and the fall out is likely to continue for some months ahead.
The original Foreign Office, 27 March 1782 has an Aries Sun opposition Neptune and sextile Pluto; with Sun and Neptune square Saturn opposition Uranus Jupiter. So reasonable similarity to the modern chart.
The Foreign Office 1782 Chart has the US Saturn at 14 Libra close to its South Node at 16 Libra and the the FO Pluto sits at 6 Aquarius close to the US South Node at 8 Aquarius. The two have a pretty heavyweight fated connection perhaps not unsurprisingly as they came into existence at about the same time. Historically the US has always been trying to breakaway from its European colonial origins but the FO is always dragging it back to its past which probably causes underlying resentment. The US wants to fulfil the higher calling of its constitution to fulfil its North node destiny but the reality of its power is that it often ends behaving like its former colonial master. The current Saturn/Uranus square is really rattling that 1782 FO Pluto and US South node axis at the moment.
At the same time the US Saturn near the FO South node means the relationship is deadly serious and challenging. There are mutual debts to be repaid here but perhaps some underlying resentment about having to face upto responsibilities.
Apologies that should have read the FO Pluto is at 8 Aquarius and the US South node at 6 Aquarius.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you want to catch western governments on the hop then make your move in August when all the politicians and senior civil servants decide to go on holiday at the same time. The Taliban clearly did not need a lot of intelligence assets to know when to launch their bid for power when it was so readily signposted by the leave calendar. When the US withdrew from Bagram airbase in July without telling any of their allies it should have been a huge red flag as to what might happen but apparently no one saw fit to revise their vacation schedule.
It would be comforting to think that the dysfunctional nature of the Foreign Office and other British government departments could be laid at the doors of the hapless Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Brexit or what other dish de jour is on the political menu today but the truth is a secular trend running back decades. Without fundamental reform of the way decisions like Afghanistan are made then changing the faces at the top is simply replacing one stand up turn in the comedy arm of the military industrial complex with another. The gags and lines might change but the show will essentially remain the same.
I was born in the middle of the Suez crisis and the military and political withdrawal from east of that geographical point was the prevailing policy. One of the reasons for that decision was that politicians of that era knew that the sending the conscript soldiers of the late 1950s and early 1960s to fight in costly foreign adventures with dubious chances of success was not a vote winner. That decision held sway until the First Gulf War. By then the U.K. military was a volunteer only professional force which had spent most of its time involved in counter insurgency in Ulster or manning the Cold War borders of Europe. The First Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Good Friday agreement changed that situation and the U.K. got caught up in more and more interventions overseas particularly under the Blair government as there was an attempt by the USA and its allies to reorder the world. In the U.K. one of the major problems with that policy was that politicians on all sides of the spectrum implicitly started to will ends without providing means, instead relying on the USA to do the heavy lifting. They relied on a largely apathetic public being compliant because the decisions did not have consequences that impacted them materially most of the time. The mismatch between what people wanted and what they were prepared to commit to achieving the goal was clear from the debate in the House of Commons on the Afghan crisis when many MPs were demanding things that the U.K. could not possibly achieve with its limited financial and military resources. The next time such an involvement as Iraq or Afghanistan is suggested I hope someone points out that to achieve the goal will require conscription, a million men under arms and basic rate income tax at 50 pence in the pound to pay for it all. I think that might concentrate a few minds but I doubt anyone in government would be honest enough to admit it.
Thank you for your very interesting posts. I too was struck by the unrealistic debate in the HOC. It all sounded so imperialistic. Perhaps this devastating Afghan humanitarian mess could be Capricorn Pluto dismantling obsolete malfunctioning systems, egged on by the Saturn and Uranus square off. The precedent of the Suez crisis is apt, in that the West, especially the US, needs to think long and hard about its waning power and how it should conduct itself in future. Our 200 years in the sun is over.
On a more parochial note, the FO comes out really badly in Tom Bower’s biography of Boris Johnson. While definitely not a fan, the way the FO abetted by the saintly Theresa, thwarted Boris at every move was disgraceful. Antipathy is one thing, but having the organisation actively work to trip him up at the expense of the UK is another.
I am struck by the number of senior Tory party figures, even in the Cabinet, who are the sons and daughters of immigrants to the British Isles. People whose political ideology would deny the same opportunities to others that they themselves and their families once enjoyed. Raab’s father was Czech, Patel’s parents Ugandan Indian, Sunak’s parents too were Indians who settled in East Africa before emigrating to the UK, Javid’s family was from Pakistan, there are others too. Seems to me not only hypocritical but also a strange way to prove to yourself that you are no no longer ‘a foreigner’, by closing and barring the gate to others who would come after you perhaps bringing talent that the country needs. My apologies that this comment is not strictly astrology related but I do wonder what it is that causes people to turn against their own as soon as they feel safe. Perhaps a belief that there is not enough to go round, not enough for everyone to thrive. The same psychological driver behind hoarding. I’ve always believed that astrology and psychology go hand in hand.
So many of the people ‘at the top’ in our world are unbelievable failures who just keep being there. I am endlessly gob-smacked – nothing is solved and difficulties multiply exponentially. We seem doomed.
I don’t think the right wing of the Tory party wanted to see an influx of brown faces to this country, despite clear merit and they assumed, probably rightly, it wouldn’t play well with their “ demographic”. Alongside a dilettante and entitled incompetence, this sh*tshow of a govt destroy human lives wholesale with no real impunity . These are men who had other people butter their toast at public school…..I guess the astrology hinges on that chart of the govt with lethal Neptune aspects, triggered I hope by the Dec eclipse to come. Can’t come soon enough….Raab is utterly useless beyond words