The shambles at the heart of Boris Johnson’s No 10 sojourn is being laid bare in excruciating detail at the covid inquiry. Back into the limelight today sharpening his quill to give evidence is the poisonous Dominic Cummings. His selection by BJ to being the in-charge-of-everything Svengali was an astrological mystery since everything in the other’s chart is at cross purposes.
BJ’s windmill-in-a-hurricane Mutable T Square of Uranus Pluto opposition Saturn square Mars in Gemini collides head on with Cummings’ Mutable T Square. DC’s Saturn in Gemini is conjunct Boris’s focal point Mars with DC’s Sun Neptune opposition Boris’s Mars; and square his Uranus with Cummings Pluto trine Boris’s Mars. Cummings’ Mars in Pisces is conjunct Boris’s Saturn and opposition his Uranus Pluto – and that is some heap of aggravation and potential for resentment. A destructive/ self-destructive Mars Saturn feste.
The relationship chart does little to clear up the puzzle – there is admittedly a controlling composite Sun Pluto; but there’s also a highly stressed and over-heated Yod of Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Mars Saturn. It looks an exceptionally masochistic connection. The aggravated composite Mars North Node Saturn in Aries was elbowed by this month’s Solar Eclipse in opposition.
At the time of his appointment Matthew Parris described Cummings as “a brilliant and prosecuting intellect. One of the sharpest tongues in modern political history, and a free spirit who cares not a jot whom he offends or what people think of him. Mr Cummings has a mind which is the very antithesis of Mr Johnson’s: logical, razor-sharp, directed, and ideologically remorseless.”
“That he will fall out with his new master within months is almost certain. That, when he does, the world will know about it in coruscating language, equally so.” “ (BJ) has set his own time bomb ticking. And in Mr Cummings, he has appointed his own literary executioner.”
All water under the bridge now and Dominic Cummings is facing the same Saturnine slog as Boris over the coming eighteen months. But it does feel like full circle to an unbelievable damaging phase.
Boris’s throwaway thought to avoid a lockdown by letting old people die to save the economy is a particularly choice titbit from the inquiry given it was probably the oldies who voted him in.
May be stretching a point – but Pluto in Capricorn’s swansong? Exposing the fault lines in government systems.
Penny wise Pound foolish
Any chance one potentially good outcome of Pluto entering Aquarius might be a truly diverse government including not just the usual suspects ( women, ethnic minorities etc) but also “working class” and disadvantaged sections of society? One of the things to come out of this inquiry is the admission that government ( civil service also) is largely drawn from a small pool of the elite who simply don’t seem to know they don’t know how many of us live. This is what many of us suspected all along.
Looks like we are moving in that direction with a Labour govt. Angela Rayner as Deputy PM.
I recall reading that Cummings was the mastermind behind Johnson’s Brexit campaign and later when he became PM. Cumming’s Sag planets could see the abstracted, big picture while Johnson’s scattergun Gemini/Virgo were getting lost in the detail. While I have no oppositions in my chart, I’ve found people with opposing planets are always very attractive … until they aren’t. But I think the more you develop, the more you are learning the skills of your polar opposites to balance your own energy. For someone with oppositions, I’d imagine it’s “can’t live with them, can’t live without”.
As for what the enquiry is revealing, I can never quite understand how we arrived at this point. Not so much that Johnson was a terrible leader, that was obvious from the moment he took office and couldn’t be bothered to turn up for meetings or brought his dad with him. Moreso, how the choices are so poor and people are willing to vote for them. In some ways, I think it started with Uranus/Neptune in Capricorn superficialising politics and Pluto there is now the ‘high’ point and it will have to be ripped apart.
It was the combination of the two which was the marriage made in hell. The bureaucratic machine of government could probably have coped with the erratic Johnson alone as he is simply so scattered in his thinking and behaviour that he can achieve little in his own. He needed focused enablers to so fatally upset the apple cart. One suspects Cummings played that role. Much has been made about Johnson’s comment about the elderly being left to die from COVID to save the economy but I think the actions of sections of his government went beyond simple passive neglect. This is where the behaviour of Hancock and the Department of Health is central since the widespread hospital practice of discharging elderly patients into care homes without testing them for COVID was both a major factor in the spread of the disease and the large number of fatalities. The question of who made that decision and whether there was any resistance to it should be one of the central concerns of the enquiry.
I think Marjorie is certainly correct in the final sentence. Increasingly the political choices of leaders presented to the British public by the major parties at elections have been terrible. Given the choice of Corbyn or Johnson in 2019 it was almost inevitable that chaos in one form or another would have been the result no matter how people voted. In addition it is clear from the number of MPs being hauled up for malpractice or poor behaviour that the quality of the average politician is in decline. Similar issues seem to be rotting way the civil service and eroding the ability of the machinery of government to function. Given this situation it is not surprising that recent by-election turnouts have been so pitifully low.
The 2019 election results were shaped by the BBC (Brexit, Boris and Corbyn).
“Given the choice of Corbyn or Johnson in 2019 it was almost inevitable that chaos in one form or another would have been the result no matter how people voted.”
A very interesting point, Hugh. I agree. Both Johnson and Corbyn are multiple Geminis, with Venus and Mercury conjunct in Gemini. Corbyn’s Gemini stellium ends with Uranus at 29 Gemini. Both have had three wives, with their third wife being considerably younger – helping them maintain their ‘youthful’ inner selves perhaps?
Both men are in tune with the UK’s Neptune at 18 Scorpio – part of its fixed t-square of Neptune, Mars in Taurus, and Venus in Aquarius. Johnson has his striking Jupiter/Neptune see-saw opposition, Corbyn has his stubborn Mars 19 Taurus, Moon 21 Taurus, square Pluto 14 Leo.
Both men have their Gemini Mercury opposing the UK Mercury at 17 Sagittarius. In 2019 both had probably enjoyed the optimistic high of Jupiter in Sagittarius opposing this, and were about to have the Neptune in Pisces square – so neither would have been clear sighted when the pandemic hit, or prepared in any way for that January 2020 Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn, and the Lunar Eclipse in Cancer that sat on the UK Moon (the public).
Corbyn’s Neptune, 12 Libra, is on the UK S Node – and conjunct Boris ascendant in Libra. Perhaps both represented the pull of the past to some extent? Either way, the ‘fault lines in government systems’ would have been exposed, as Marjorie writes.
That is a very interesting analysis Jane. I was just expressing my personal feelings on the matter but is nice to see the astrology mirroring it so precisely.
Thanks Hugh. I’ve noticed another pandemic astrology mirror. As we all know, unfortunately, Matt Hancock was Health Secretary. Born 2nd October, 1978. At the start of the pandemic, until 2021, the Shadow Health Secretary was Jonathan Ashworth, 14 October, 1978. Both have Libran stelliums of Sun, Mercury and Pluto, with Hancock also having a Libran Moon which might be conjunct the UK South Node.
Both of them have Venus, Mars and Uranus in Scorpio. Hancock – Mars 8, Venus 18, Uranus 14. Ashworth – Mars 16, Uranus 15, Venus 22. So all around UK Neptune in Scorpio, for financial disruption and confusion? And adding to the Johnson/Corbyn Neptune connections too. Possibly all that Neptune also represents the mysterious nature of the virus and its origins, which nobody understood at the beginning.
Both Hancock and Ashworth have their natal Sagittarian Neptune conjunct the UK Mercury – 15 for Hancock, 16 for Ashworth – suggesting confusing or even over-hopeful communications. They would both have a potentially “yes but no but” communication style with their respective Gemini leaders.Their Chiron, 8 Taurus, is uncomfortably close to UK Mars. And their Pluto in Libra, 16, squares the public’s UK Moon in “you must stay at home” Cancer, already sensitised by the Lunar Eclipse, and the powerful Saturn/Pluto opposition to that Moon.
People talk about the ‘uniparty’ don’t they?! Here’s the astrology apparently playing around with that notion and theme at that time with the PM and the Health Secretary of either party. And who knows what/who else?
My view is that Corbyn would have been a much better leader during the Pandemic. However given Brexit still needed to be done and what was in his manifesto, probably the recent past would have played out differently but still fulfilled the astrology. For example, with The Queen dying last year perhaps how would his Republicanism have played out?!
Hmmn. Awkward! Corbyn is only six months younger than King Charles – November 1948, May 1949. So their Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are close. Otherwise, Charles’ Sun 22 Scorpio square Pluto 16 Leo would be rather uncomfortable with Corbyn’s Moon 21 Taurus, Mars 19 Taurus, and Pluto 14 Leo.
By then though, in this fantasy alternative reality, Corbyn as PM would have been meeting the Queen on a regular basis. Her Mars/Jupiter were 20 and 22 Aquarius, Neptune 22 Leo, Saturn 24 Scorpio (Corbyn’s ascendant). The UK Saturn is 23 royal Leo, in the 11th house. It squares the Neptune in Scorpio, bringing that foggy, secretive influence back in again. All pretty uncomfortable for everyone involved. By now, tr Uranus would be throwing a spanner in the works as well.
You might argue that the population had the ‘free will’ to elect either Boris or Corbyn, but that the ‘fated’ part of this era – and what we can learn from it – was there in the planetary patterns?
Jane – yep it seems like you’ve summed up my thoughts with the astrology.
This has been my takeaway from the past decade of a Pluto through 9th transit showing me how ‘god’ works. One personal story sums it up, I made one very bad decision in my life. And every thing that came after it was unavoidable. I spent a good 5yrs wondering what I could have done differently, but I came to see it didn’t matter what I did, I was never getting goodies out of it. I did the best – ethically, morally, lovingly I could, and had to accept the result I got. But it was always a poor result due to that initial decision. There were different paths I could have chosen but each of them also had downsides – either by prolonging the situation, trashing my moral integrity or whatever.
And I think that’s kind of what’s happened with the UK. Chain of events that are unavoidably rubbish – Thatcher/Labour/banks/Tories/austerity/UKIP/Brexit etc, etc. Unfortunately the vast majority of people will always take the easy option rather than take their medicine so we keep tumbling.
I’m noting that wherever you look around the world at the moment – whether France, Germany, Sweden, Australia, India or wherever – it’s all pretty much getting taken down by Pluto in Capricorn. The choices those countries have made over the years are very different to ours – yet it’s all in turmoil in some way. Probably to a greater or lesser extent depending on the choices made.
Yes, we’re seeing massive changes with more ahead I agree, GD. Could some of this be Neptune’s sea-change, as it inhabits Pisces, and the natural twelfth house? It is the home of hidden enemies, hospitals, prisons, and the vast tracts of the unconscious. Is this part of the anima mundi, the world’s soul? We can associate Neptune in Pisces, last time around, with the Communist Manifesto, spiritualism, and the wide, legal availability of drugs such as cannabis and opium. And all around, the Industrial Revolution changed landscapes and lives all over Europe and the US, with a knock-on effect in numerous countries. Since Neptune and Pluto are travelling in sextile now – muddy waters – it is just a thought.
Yes, those bad life decisions and choices do tend to set a whole row of dominoes tumbling don’t they? It reminds me of that poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Here’s the final verse:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
One point that should be added about about Cummings is that though he is an unpleasant and disruptive character his portrayal of the Whitehall bureaucrats as inert, complacent and ineffective rings very true. Johnson’s government was responsible for many things but issues such as the failure to maintain and refresh adequate supplies of in date protective gear for use in a pandemic can not be laid at its door since those failures predated it by many years. A key basis for the response should have been the Pandemic Influenza Response Plan of 2014 which set out how the government should deal with a virus that in its spread was in many ways was similar to the Coronavirus. It would be interesting to know how far the response structures set out in that plan were set up, how far the recommended responses were followed and whether the plan was actually adequate given the failures with regard to equipping staff properly that were revealed.
“Exercise Cygnus” was carried out in October 2016, a three-day simulation of a influenza pandemic. Hancock, who was Secretary for Health 2018 -21 – claimed that all the recommendations from its report were implemented. But given how often the government has lied, I’d treat that with a pinch of salt.
According to Helen MacNamara, (who was also subjected to some horrible misogyny at the hands of Cummings), Hancock: “reassured me that he was ‘loving responsibility’ and to demonstrate this took up a batsman’s stance outside the Cabinet Room, and said, ‘they bowl them at me, I knock them away’”.
Other than being straight out of the Alan Partridge playbook, this really typifies the approach that many privileged ex public schoolboys have towards serious challenges – they see it all as a game.
Marina Hyde makes an interesting point in her column about how Hancock is now on his 2nd reality TV show and Johnson considered doing “I’m a Celebrity”. That most of these politicians are like reality show contestants, vapid, willing to say or do anything and desperate to win.
I revise my earlier comment that perhaps it was Uranus/Neptune in Capricorn when things started to unravel to it being the Aqua era. That was when anyone could become famous on TV, you no longer needed talent. Likewise, anybody could become a politician. Ultimately though, it is the natural cycle – build, grow, peak, decay, rebirth. And unfortunately, we’re now witnessing decay.
Or whether, as happened in the US, the purchase of adequate, updated PPE and other supplies were never funded?
Since the “next pandemic” may be years or decades away, supposedly beyond sight, it’s easy to defer or eliminate funding to meet those future needs.
How do we know that the “next pandemic” may be years or decades away? competent governments ought to be ready to face such eventualities.
Agreed, but that’s the logic and ideology of people who don’t want to invest in preventive measures. We’re seeing it so clearly in the US and obviously the UK. We don’t know when the next pandemic will come or what type it will be. For the deniers, as with climate change deniers, it’s much easier to stick their heads in the sand and cry “fiscal responsibility.”
Aargh!