


Revelations about Boris Johnson’s childhood and messy romantic life in Tom Bower’s biography “Boris Johnson: The Gambler” have filled in a graphic background to what was already known or suspected. And it helps flesh out and give a context to his birth chart.
His father Stanley – a Sun Mars in Leo square Uranus – was not only an emotionally distant and mainly never-there father and a serial womaniser, he was also violent towards his first wife. She claims he broke her nose in an altercation, which he said she deserved. She ultimately ended up in a mental hospital with depression for eight months. Boris was sent off to preparatory school aged ten and then Eton, compounding his unhappiness and sense of alienation. When his father was home, he instilled a dog-eat-dog, cut-throat desire to win arguments at any cost in his children, setting them up in competition with each other.
Stanley Johnson, 18 August 1940, has an incredibly fixed as well as angry and competitive chart with Saturn Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus and Pluto Mercury in Leo as well as his Sun Mars – nothing will budge him. Boris is the polar opposite with his jitterbug four Gemini planets, Uranus Pluto in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces.
Evidently the only stable parenting figure in Boris’s early childhood was a grandfather which explains his two 8th house planets.
What I hadn’t really concentrated on before now since it is out-of-sign is Boris’s Grand Trine of Scorpio Moon trine Saturn trine Node, Venus Sun in Gemini, formed into a Kite by Saturn opposition Uranus. Moon Saturn is depressive (as is Saturn opposition Pluto), an indication of a less than warm and nurturing childhood. Moon trine Venus hints paradoxically at an affectionate connection to women figures in his life. Bower comments again and again that “only a woman could ever be his confidante.” And yet as Jennifer Arcuri, one of his recent mistresses, also comments he had a blind spot inherited from Stanley: ‘An inability to take women seriously.’ His intensely emotional and highly sexual Scorpio Moon is tied into his chart in a highly complex and contradictory web, trine Saturn and trine Sun Venus, as well as sextile Uranus and tied into his Neptune and Jupiter by more minor aspects.
He comes across as exceptionally lonely with no real friends, only a conveyor belt of passing romantic affairs. His second wife for 25 years Marina was the one mainstay of his life, who kept him grounded, through endless affairs and wayward pregnancies. The affair with Carrie Symonds, according to those close, would have fizzled out had Marina not decided that she’d had enough and much to his horror filed for divorce. Jennifer Arcuri (admittedly hardly a detached observer) commented of Carrie: ‘Boris got caught by a flirtatious minx. She’s controlling him.’
Boris’s attitude to men/father figures is all wrapped up in his Saturn opposition Uranus Pluto square Mars. Mars Saturn reflects cruelty and anger; Mars Pluto ruthlessness and black rage; Mars Uranus is explosive.
His relationship chart with his father has a volatile, high-wire, needs-space Mars conjunct Uranus in a can-be-fanatical square to Neptune; with a power-struggling for the upper hand Jupiter square Pluto; and a chilly Saturn square Mercury, Venus.
The tensions in the wider Johnson family, laid bare in Bower’s book, make clear how Boris’s grown up children from his marriage expressed their contempt for his behaviour when the divorce happened, siding with their mother.
Two minor points. One is that Rachel, Boris’s sister evidently refuses to condemn her father. Born 3 September 1965, she has a prominent Sagittarius Moon probably square Saturn opposition Pluto, Uranus Sun in Virgo. Which validates the notion that Sag Moons tend to airbrush out what they don’t want to see. [Ever since Solaia pointed it out I have found countless examples.]
The other is another comment from Jennifer Arcuri who seems, contrary to appearances, to be perceptive. ‘She saw him as an introvert, a depressive who enjoyed solitude, and someone who needed to be alone. Paradoxically, particularly on those days of his greatest public successes, he could decline into an intense depression.’
Which might explain his astrology when he won the last election when all his chart indicated was negativity. Ditto Cummings. A psychological trait to ponder – and to keep in mind for election predictions.
He’s undoubtedly a talented if anguished man, which latter need not prevent him from making a considerable impact. His leaving-a-legacy-for-history 17th Harmonic is strong; as is his 15H = a magic number in numerology which rules alchemy, black magic, need for erotic experiences, actors and eloquent speakers. It is a “tricky” number, not always lucky, and sometimes it can be associated with illness. His 7th harmonic is also marked which suggests a seeking soul who needs peace and can be cold and self-centered. His can-be-self-defeating 10H and 16H are also notable.