Boris Johnson was sworn in by the Queen just after 11 am this morning. That puts an ultra-determined, opinionated and vengeful Mars in Scorpio in the 9th (foreign neighbours) in a publicity-attracting trine to Neptune which is also in turn square the Sagittarius Sun. It’s not quite as Neptunian a swamp as Theresa May’s Government chart but he will still find it difficult to be decisive and push through for closure on key issues.
The restrictive Saturn Pluto conjunction sandwiching Venus is in the 12th and it sits on the focal point of the Mars trine Neptune – which is messy and tough-going. Saturn in the 12th is not normally overly practical; conjunct Pluto and sextile Mars it could be resourceful in crises but it will tend to attract them, so there’ll be running hitches, glitches and setbacks.
There’s a lucky Jupiter trine Uranus and Jupiter opposition a 5th house Cancer Moon which suggests there will be fortunate opportunities turning up and popularity with the general sentiment in the country.
It’s not a disastrous chart and his government will be voluble with both Sun and Mercury in Sagittarius and that 9th house Mars. But when it comes to real constructive progress in the material world, the 12th house Saturn Pluto will prove a drag.
All the planets retrograde in 2020. I’m wondering whether this will slow things down? Also with Mars so strong in Aries, and retrograde September-November, whether it will be a case of “the biter, bit” – retro Mars not being a favourable time to push for things or start a war you want to win. Also curious that Venus retrogrades in Gemini, turning back at 21 Gemini in May, right opposite the new term’s Sun in Sagittarius. Its a region of the sky stuffed with fixed stars, mostly fortunate ones, but indicates a surge of extra energy at that time I think. That could manifest in the financial markets, and/or suggest stories about women from the past…..our imaginations may fill in the blanks!
I am intrigued by the government chart. Saturn and Pluto in the twelfth house indicates I think secret anxiety and dealings. I wonder whether below the surface this government is quite anxious and worried – possibly about their new friends in the North and whether they can deliver on their promises. The Pluto will give secret uncontrollable energy to this feeing. I wonder whether they will be flexible enough with an Aquarian ascendant to deal with it.
This anxiety counter balances the Jupiter aspects. I suspect that there is a danger that they will miss some Jupiter opportunities because of this anxiety.
This anxiety will become more acute with economic stress in 2020 /2021as well as continuing Brexit issues. The country will look to its noisy government for help and they will oblige but be secretly worried?.
This is wild speculation but fun and a distraction from the poverty of our politics.
I love it when the socialists are made to eat their words. This is no longer a true astrology website, it’s a chamber for left wing opinion. Well out of touch with a Pluto/Saturn conjunction in Capricorn. Thank goodness the British public saw more sense. Any competent astrologer knew this was coming.
You’re right, next time we’ll all go hide in a fridge.
Sweaty Joe, Take a hike. If you had bothered to read past postings you’d see I was even more scathing about Corbyn.
Socialist, I ain’t. Nor Tory, nor LibDem. nor Green, nor Brexit. Frankly I wanted all of this lot to lose.
Thanks Marjorie for this and previous posts.
I seem to remember that you said that this year would be decisive for the UK and that also Boris is tied into the UK’s destiny. You also predicted that Corbyn would go the same way as May.
I must say that the short term aspects did seem to favour a conservative victory but the long term does look turbulent both astrologically and in the mundane world with economic stress in 2021 among other things. How this plays out for Boris is difficult to know but one has the feeling he has reached a peak and having won will have difficulty with events especially with no significant planets in the cardinal signs. Events as Harold Macmillan was alleged to have said were the most difficult part of being Premier.
Saturn in the 12th rather fits with Boris Johnson’s natal stationary retrograde Saturn in Pisces. Perhaps that’s why he was able to conjure up an election out of the hat despite all the Saturn/Capricorn influences around (him perhaps being the most un-Capricorn, un-Saturn, irresponsible person around, can’t even take responsibility for children he fathered). His problem will be holding it together.
I’ve also followed a Chinese ‘8 character’ master who has accurately predicted many events in past years (include trump’s win in 2016). In July he predicted that Boris will be doing barely ok in ‘19 and ‘20 but a bad year in ‘21 and even worse in ‘22. Like western astrology, Chinese astrology requires birth time in order to make accurate prediction. However he seems confident about Boris fate. The only way Boris can keep his job is that if Labour or other parties leaders have even worse charts.
Hi Mark, who is this person? Is there a link to their webpage? Thanks.
Does anyone else see female trouble in the Pluto-Venus-Saturn in the 12th? Brought down by a hidden powerful woman perhaps? Investigative journalist? Insider who turns? The girlfriend, betrayed and abused, uncovered? Shady financial issues certainly, all concealed by the trickster on the MC, firing off the Jupiter-Moon 5th-11th show (fooling most of the people most of the time), but doesn’t Saturn’s presence down in the cellar, with death and the maiden, signify that the bill will come due, eventually? The rape of Persephone gets found out? The girl victim can’t be hidden for ever, concrete over the patio…
Also Neptune in the 1st tightly trining mars in the 9th; this is a forcefully untruthfully entity, or, more generously, a creatively active one. And one that probably gets away with it too (trine), at least until that threesome in the cellar gets busy. Johnson remains dissembler in chief over an agenda that will never be what it seems, or rather is not what it is sold as… grimly we know the kind of nihilistic plans the likes of Raab, Gove, Rees-Mogg, and Priti have, cos they never shut up about them, is this what Johnson is for; to provide the jocular cover for the continued immiseration of many of those that voted for him? Seems likely. Targeted austerity on even less, now owned by Americans. Poor blighty.
I think we are going to hear more from Jennifer Arcuri, but what they really should be worried about is that Russia Report. This definitely will spark investigation on who finances Brexit. And I actually have a far greater trust in both British Judical System and British public understanding Russia led by Putin is not your friend than Americans.
Fascinating synastry between Boris Johnson’s natal chart and the Full Moon chart drawn for London on 12 December 2019 just before the polls opened for voting on Thursday. Johnson’s Mercury at 19 Gemini was exactly conjunct the Moon and opposing the Sun at 19 Sagittarius. Here we have a politician born under the communication/trickster sign with his natal Mercury, the communication/trickster planet, exactly conjunct the Moon symbol of the people at large in the 8th house symbolic of death, taxes and financial relations with foreign countries.
Johnson might be a slippery character but he has pulled off one of the most remarkable political conjuring tricks in recent British political history. He took over a Conservative party mired in Brexit mess of its own making whose travails in Parliament made it appear dead and buried dead . Yet within a few months he transformed its fortunes so that it polled the highest percentage of the popular vote in a General Election than any party since Mrs Thatcher won in her historic 1979 victory. He has also given his party a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons which is the biggest margin of victory since 2001. The wider political impact of the result is that even if Johnson dropped dead tomorrow his resurrected party is going to be the dominant force in government for the next 5 years. This was all achieved using a manifesto and a campaign which offered virtually nothing but a vague promise to get Brexit done. Quite how he has achieved this piece of magic when Theresa May so singularly failed in 2017 is going to keep political analysts puzzled for years.
One thing I have noted is that Mars at the time of the Full Moon was at 15 Scorpio conjunct Johnson’s natal Neptune and opposing his natal Jupiter at 15 Taurus. It was within close orb of the fixed star Zubenelgenubi which is associated with malevolence, obstruction, an unforgiving character, violence, disease, lying, crime, disgrace, and danger of poison. Zubenelgenubi or the Southern Scales also has associations with judgement in all its forms both human and divine. It is at that station while his government is formed. Mars is moving by transit to 24 Scorpio at the time of the Solar Eclipse where it will be conjunct the EU Maastricht Pluto and Mars at 24 Scorpio and opposing the Maastricht Moon at 24 Taurus. Just before that event it will cross the 23 Scorpio Mars in the 2016 EU Referendum chart. Mars will move to be conjunct 22 Capricorn at the Aries Ingress In 2020 which lies on the same degree as the Saturn Pluto synod in January 2020 and then on to 23 Aries square Pluto at 23 Capricorn at the time of the Grand Saturn Jupiter Conjunction at 0 Aquarius in 21 December 2020. When that final event takes place the North Node will be at 19 Gemini exactly conjunct the Moon in the 12 December 2019 Full Moon chart and Boris Johnson’s natal Mercury so these charts and transits seem strangely fated.
Actually it is more subtle than that. He finished off the job that started with Theresa May. In 2017, the Conservative DID make inroads into Labour’s red wall where people voted Leave in terms of vote share, but it did not translate into seats. However, the irresistible pull of ‘Get Brexit Done’ did finally crack the red wall. This result is about people wanting Brexit done, concerns about immigrants swamping the country, burdening the NHS etc.
Labour were warned repeatedly about ignoring working class voters concerns. The really significant decline in working class post industrial voters in north & Wales started in the Blair years – it is a long-standing issue.
Absolutely agree.
The vote share for Theresa May in 2017 was very close to Johnson’s in 2019 yet she could not get a majority. The truth is that with a better drafted manifesto and campaign she might have won. This time Labour could not attract enough votes in the south to make up for is poor performance in the North. The danger now is that Labour are stuck with nowhere to go. Simply ousting Corbyn and putting a Remain supporting Blairite in charge won’t win back those lost northern voters. Similarly, a full on Momentum style Marxist manifesto can’t win them a majority. They really need to go back to first principles and decide what is the purpose of the Party.
What should worry the left is that the last Grand Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in Air signs was in 1981 marked an era of where right wing ideas dominated under Thatcher (Libra Sun) and Reagan (Aquarius Sun). I am not expecting the next two decades to be at all touchy freely particularly once Neptune has quit Pisces. Thinking is about to become more important than feeling. As a result Labour needs more than slogans and emotion to triumph in an era where practical humanitarianism will be much more likely to win votes than simply being ‘woke’ on every subject under the sun.
Agree with your idea that practical humanitarianism will be what wins votes – in addition we are going from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age in general so practicality will be more important than emotion I’d guess.
However it should be worth noting that the Jupiter/Saturn series of conjunctions in Air signs will be running for the next two centuries or so. Just because in 1981 the one in Libra happened at the start of the Thatcher/Reagan era surely doesn’t mean that right wing ideology will be dominant for two centuries?
Just as a further note, I suspect that the forthcoming Age of Aquarius does not favour ‘big tent’ political parties.
In the 50s you could have a broad church of the right and one of the left, but as the Piscean Age has ebbed away society has become more complex and nuanced. Logically this means that proportional coalition systems like those in Germany are the way to go, as governments tend to be agreements between different factions who can still find enough shared common ground for each other’s ideas.
The US and UK political systems are older and less representative. The UK one in particular is deeply Piscean (the US constitutional setup and separation of powers is oddly enough a little more in tune with the new age). All the main parties are still very Piscean ones and yet the circumstances for a ‘broad church’ mentality have long gone (reflected in how narrow the Republicans have become in consequence). The Democrats still manage to hold a broad church together just about, but for how long? Meanwhile in the UK Johnson has managed to get a broader sweep of the electorate to vote for his party, but as pointed out by other commentators here there is an ultimate problem in that it involves free market fundamentalists and those of a far more protectionist instinct – this may create problems.
Electoral reform (or the lack of it) is the number one reason why the UK is in the mess it now is IMO (there are other factors but the FPTP system has massively exacerbated them into crisis fuel). I’d say the only hope for the political system is some kind of tactical vote pact to ensure a coalition of the broad centre left into power with the single aim of reforming the system. Otherwise the continued dominance of HoC seats by a party with > 50% of the popular vote may resolve itself into some of the darker tendencies of Pluto in Aquarius coming to the fore.
That is if the UK survives anyway. I had mentioned before about ‘big tent’ parties being a thing of the past but the UK is increasingly not the ‘big tent’ Britain of Macmillan or Wilson’s time (leaving aside NI which has always been its own thing anyway). Scots and Welsh nationalists arethe obvious examples but chiefly in England there is more and more difference and variation in the preferences and wishes of different areas. I sometimes wonder if the idea of being broadly English in a big tent context is becoming less workable in line with the party structures. England to me (speaking as a resident of it) definitely lacks a binding identity in the way the other UK nations do, and this I think is manifesting in the variation I just mentioned. I recall an earlier series of comments (cannot recall which post they were under) which suggest that the Pluto transit through Capricorn and Aquarius combined with Neptune’s transit from Pisces to Aries does seem to do something to British and chiefly English identity, and the various charts used to England’s founding (927, 973, 1066) show pressures and influences coming in the 2020s.
Edit: the above comment should read . Apologies.
Second edit: what I meant to say was this:
a party with < 50% of the popular vote
Is it possible to put an edit function on the comments here?
Thanks
The U.K. had a chance to move to a more representational voting system in 2011 when there was a Referendum on adopting the ATV proportional voting system for U.K. General Elections (the Referendum everyone forgets). Unfortunately, the proposal was overwhelmingly rejected by 67% of the public who cast their vote. Unlike the EU Referendum the result was also constitutionally binding so as the result was not even close I doubt there will be any revisiting of PR anytime soon.
It should also be noted that for various demographic reasons and delays in Constituency boundary changes the FPTP system used at the moment actually benefits Labour more than any other U.K. party. The records show they require fewer votes on average to return MPs and to win an outright majority. Tony Blair was returned with a 66 seat majority in 2005 with only 35% of the popular vote. By comparison Boris Johnson’s Conservative 80 seat majority with 43.6% of the vote looks democratic. In fact in terms of his share of the popular vote under FPTP Johnson got a bigger share of the popular vote than any winning leader since Margaret Thatchers triumph in 1979 ( ie more than Thatcher got in 1983 or Blair in 1997 in their landslide victories). I think the significance of the result has not sunk in yet with many people but it clearly is a sign that the movement of the outer planets is heralding a pattern change in human affairs.
1) AV is still a majoritatian system and not proper PR, although I do agree there won’t be a revisit of the subject any time soon.
2) The point remains that the UK’s political set up remains deeply Piscean and this is pretty out of step with the emerging Aquarian Age.
Yes. Inserting a Remain London MP as leader, such as Keir Starmer, could be a mistake. Corbyn was attacked for being part of the ‘elite’ because he lives in Islington-ish (where Blair dreamt up New Labour), even though it suffers from areas of significant poverty & high income inequality.
The ongoing, unaddressed challenge for Labour is how to reconnect with their lost working-class heartlands on the ground – a loss which accelerated signficantly during the New Labour era and shows no signs of abating. A four week election campaign blitz and winning the war on Twitter doesn’t cut the mustard, unfortunately. For such a defining election, voter turnout was down compared to 2017 & many Labour voters stayed at home. Labour’s latest remain-y Brexit position backfired spectacularly in the North & Wales, and Starmer was a key advocate.
Perhaps exposure to the propahanda in the Murdoch press had a large part to play in forming opinion in traditional Labour vote areas. Perhaps Labour need to focus on parts of the population who are able to resist this influence for future support.
I’m no expert in the Labour heartlands but it always seemed to me that the Corbynite/Momentum cultists were a bunch of ideologues, mostly not from working-class backgrounds, University educated and some straight into politics from there. A bit like the Cambridge commies of the 1930s. Theoretically pro-working class but not really in tune with what the reality was like.
One columnist had a telling story about a voter asking a canvasser/candidate what would be done about their flooded house and being given a lecture on climate change. Which really isn’t a help when there is sewage floating through the ground floor.
They always seemed more interested in what was happening abroad than in the grass roots.
I’m not sure the anti-Semitic thing was a major issue amongst the punters who don’t read the broadsheets. But it fitted a pattern of Corbyn being so inept that he really couldn’t be trusted to get a grip and get anything done.
And last but not least people as so sick to death of Brexit they just want it out of the way.
Well, I suppose at least they were honest if not the most tactful, but maybe not as bad as Jacob Rees-Mogg would’ve been! I think perhaps some of them were Momentum, but actually I just think a lot of them were just very young students, very aware of the environmental threat and more passionate about the issue than the average older voter. I believe they were giving less than an hour’s training before being sent out t the doorsteps.
But there was a really huge reliance on these young volunteers because of the massive disparity in election funding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50508009
They were also up against this
https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/10/investigation-finds-88-tory-ads-misleading-compared-0-labour-11651802/
Fiona Millar (ex-Blair advisor) commenting on the focus groups in marginal Labour seats during the 2019 election & MPs of every party said the perception of Corbyn being an ‘anti-semite’, ‘a terrorist’, and ‘anti-British’ really cut through with voters on the doorstep. It was important because it powerfully reinforced the anti-immigration, anti-muslim, populist narrative that ensured the pro-Brexit Leave victory in 2016, in the first place. It was a very effective attack line that Johnson & Swinson (even in her farewell speech), for very differing reasons, referred to frequently throughout the 2019 GE. The post truth narrative in this election was something that would have made Trump proud. The GE chart did have a lot of Neptunian influences impacting the Sun, Moon and Mercury on the Sagittarius/ Gemini axis. An independent body reported that 88% of the Tories’ ads in the election were misleading and recommends that the next government (highly unlikely) must create a new regulator to oversee election advertising.
From the Guardian, 06/12/19: ‘The Liberal Democrats have defended themselves against accusations they are distributing “misleading and irresponsible” election leaflets that misrepresent newspaper reports as endorsements of the party. In one leaflet delivered to households in London, a partial headline about the party’s success in a byelection in Wales is attributed to the Guardian when the original author of the words was its own leader, Jo Swinson.’
https://fullfact.org/news/lib-dem-leaflet-false-quote/
The unprecedented levels of information distortion during this election makes sense astrologically in light of the hard aspects between Neptune & the Sun, Moon & Mercury for the election day charts, whether for the opening or end of polling day charts.
I followed election night on a favourite forum in some dark, leftish corner of the internet. Quite shocked at the reaction from the mainly London folk on there calling working class Northerners thick, bigoted, racist, haters of the nhs, scum, fascist and worse. The forum is a classic echo chamber. They still don’t get it and continue to blame and finger point and appear incapable of introspection. I mean wow – how to drive away and alienate people! They cannot see that the British people are so ground down by Brexit, they just wanted it over and done with.
Boris is, of course, facing the official (criminal?) inquiry into Jennifer Arcuri and whether she was given an unfair leg up business-wise while he was Mayor – that was postponed till the election was over. And his divorce is still not finalised.
Mark Sandler of the NY Times has a well-argued piece pointing up some of the political problems ahead.
“The voters who gave Mr. Johnson the largest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher share few of the free-trade or deregulatory instincts of the Brexiteers who masterminded Mr. Johnson’s campaign or filled his last cabinet. These voters want safe jobs, protection from imports and the restoration of a Britain that vanished in the contrails of the global economy.
That is worlds away from the agile, economically open, lightly regulated Britain that Mr. Johnson’s Downing Street brain trust envisions — Singapore-on-Thames, to use their preferred marketing slogan. Reconciling those two models will be difficult, if not impossible, even for an ideologically flexible prime minister.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/world/europe/brexit-boris-johnson-election.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
And John Grace of the Guardian, obviously in a rage about the result lets fly:
“Gove tried his best to be statesmanlike as he addressed the nation. Tricky for someone whose insincerity is now second nature. Then it was Johnson’s turn. “What will we be able to do?” he asked. That question was rhetorical. Because the real answer was that he would now be able to do whatever the fuck he wanted. The World King was in business. Though the one problem with being able to do whatever you believe in, is it rather requires you to believe in something first. And Boris has never really believed in anything but himself. And only then as a series of bodily impulses catapulting him from one crisis to another.
He said he’d get Brexit done but he still hadn’t a clue how. Or why. And one of the problems of a landslide majority was that now there was no one left to blame. He would be responsible for whatever shitshow Brexit inevitably turned into.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/classic-dom-clicks-his-fingers-and-the-celebrations-begin
These are not tight squares, but the first thing that I see on that chart is Scorpio Mars square Asc/Desc. Bush 43’s First Term Inauguration had Mars on Descendant, and we all know how that went. I wouldn’t expect Scots to resort to large scale violence to quit The Union, but Ireland will most likely be an issue
As for Saturn-Pluto-Venus in the 12th house, my interpretation of this than that money will be tight. This Government will probably have to all but sell The Tower Bridge to keep the country going.
On the positive side, I too like that 5th house Cancer Moon, too. There’s definitely goodwill. Although it could be partially do to political satirists continuing to have a field day, given “entertainment houses” the Moon-Jupiter opposition falls to.
On the positive side, the Jupiter in Capricorn trine Uranus in Taurus suggests that economic issues will resolve positively, but with some shocks here and there. Tr. Saturn moving into Aquarius next year and 2021 will square that Uranus in Taurus in the 2nd h suggesting liquidity problems perhaps.
Moving forward, that Mars in Scorpio in the 9th (legal and foreign affairs) might be problematic. That’s especially so into 2021-23 with Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus and Taurus both moving to hard aspect natal Mars, suggesting frustrating circumstances and explosive situations. Saturn crossing over the ASC in that period might also point to less successes then too. tr. Neptune in Pisces will also square its Sun in Sag, which is dissolving, stuck in the mud. Tr. Mars in Aries late next year will stress the charts Saturn/Pluto too, which really kicks off the transits of the early part of the next decade.
This government will probably have some victories in the early going, but by late next year, the frustrations will begin to build up. And by the early 2020’s, they might find it difficult to get much done, or may be mired in some sort of crisis situation. But yes, it’ll be a noisy and at time turbulent government.
“On the positive side, the Jupiter in Capricorn trine Uranus in Taurus suggests that economic issues will resolve positively, but with some shocks here and there. Tr. Saturn moving into Aquarius next year and 2021 will square that Uranus in Taurus in the 2nd h suggesting liquidity problems perhaps.”
As I noted, liquidity problems are very much indicated by that 12th house house Capricorn conjunction, too. I always look at Venus as a main indication on monetary issues on charts, and this does not look good for pound, TBH. More over, that Uranus is on 2nd house to begin with, so Jupiter trine Uranus could also mean expenses. This is NOT an austerity Government, for certain. Nothing in 8th house is a positive thing here, this won’t lead to credit crush as such, but it will probably become more difficult for Britain to lend.
Great points. Boris (and many other right-wing populists throughout the world) are certainly willing to prime the pump in order to build their electoral bases with the working classes, to stimulate economic growth, even if it risks inflation down the road. That Venus/Saturn/Pluto in the 12th can also suggest hidden financial backers. Since it is the house of self-undoing, it also points to areas that can be troubled, scandal-ridden or difficult. Late next year, tr. retrograde Mars in Aries from the 2nd house will square Venus/Saturn/Pluto in the 12th. Given how other national and corporate charts are similarly stressed at that point in time, I suspect that there may be a acute financial crisis of some sort Aug-Dec. 2020.
Is it good that the Asc is in Aquarius?
On my software using equal house (apart from Moon) it seems a Left hand chart and I notice that Bob Marks says: If there is a majority of planets on the left side of the horoscope, this is an indication that the person is better able to take initiative. Little is handed to these people on a silver platter, but that doesn’t make any difference. They can go out and get their own platter.
Which is probably what we need at the moment….