The Daily Mail is being sued by a group of celebrities, including Prince Harry, Elton John and Baroness Lawrence for what they claim are ‘gross breaches of privacy’. The publishers have responded by calling the claims ‘preposterous smears.’
The allegations, if true, are of a much more serious variety than recent ‘he said/they said’ and copyright legal spats over Thomas Markle’s letter etc since they involve illegal activity such as homes being bugged, deceptive tactics used to obtain private medical information, bank records and the tapping of live phone calls. And that is also a good deal worse than the voicemail hacking scandals fifteen years ago which closed the News of the World as advertisers pulled out and blighted the Daily Mirror.
These current allegations relate to incidents in the early 1990s. If it comes to trial it’s likely to be in court in 2024 at the earliest and could drag the Mail through a ruinously expensive legal minefield for years.
The Daily Mail was first issued on 4 May 1896 and has an enduring and acquisitive Taurus Sun in an ultra-stubborn and contrary opposition Saturn Uranus in Scorpio; with a ruthless and publicity-attracting Mars square Pluto Neptune.
It’s certainly taking a celestial hammering at the moment with a Solar Arc Saturn conjunct the Mars which usually accompanies a car-crash setback. The tr Saturn square tr Uranus and the upcoming Lunar Eclipse are all crashing into their Sun, Saturn Uranus making the next few months high stress. Tr Uranus will continue through 2023 to oppose the Uranus with another Lunar Eclipse raising the crisis level in May 2023; into another ‘collision’ type Solar Arc in 2024.
Although their digital footprint is omnipresent, sales of the newspaper are way down.
Paul Dacre was Mail editor 1992 to 2018, then editor-in-chief of the publishers DMG media. He was nearly foisted in by Boris Johnson as head of Ofcom, the broadcasting regulatory body, until there was a revolt. He’s about to levitate into the House of Lords but would have to give evidence in court if so required. Born 14 November 1948, on the same day as Prince Charles, he’s a determined, controlling and stubborn-to-the-nth degree Scorpio Sun square Pluto which is being rattled by tr Saturn and tr Uranus now and through 2023. Around 2024, or marginally earlier he looks discouraged and stuck with Solar Arc Saturn conjunct his Sun and undermined by tr Neptune square his Jupiter and Uranus in 2025.
Jonathan Harmsworth, 3 December 1967, direct heir to the founders, an expansive Sun Sagittarius square Jupiter in Virgo, has a tranche of complicated, unsettled transits and solar arcs right through till 2025 – which may not all be the result of this affair but he’s not looking remotely cheerful. With a trapped, scary tr Pluto conjunct his Mars in 2024/25.
Ted Verity, present editor, 19 August 1965, is agitated now with tr Uranus opposition his Neptune which catches the Lunar Eclipse and is cornered through 2023/24 with tr Pluto square his Mars.
ADD ON: The Daily Mail online appears to have been launched on 14 May 2004 at 9am which gives a last decan enduring Taurus Sun inconjunct Pluto and square Neptune – determined with stratospheric ambitions. There’s an unkind Mars Saturn in Cancer trine/sextile an adventurous Uranus opposition Jupiter.
This chart is running into major problems from early 2023 with the Solar Arc Pluto opposing the Saturn; and tr Saturn dampening enthusiasm in a conjunction to the Uranus and Jupiter/Uranus midpoint, followed after mid year by a jangled, destabilising tr Uranus conjunct the Sun. As well as Solar Arc Saturn square the Mercury before this year end. Part of their woes may stem from the cataclysmic shambles of the Tory Party, whose 1912 chart has Sun Saturn in Taurus close to the Mail Online’s Sun.
I stopped reading the Mail after the fuel crisis – largely fuelled by the media. The Daily Mail in particular. It sometimes acts like a troll over stories and people. I got to the stage where I never believed a word that was published. I do believe in free speech but such media should not be allowed to incite negativity amongst its readers. It is what it does everyday with its comments/clickbait section. If it were to drown under its own negativity then it would be no loss. Oh for a Newspaper or Media outlet with unbiased, factual reporting of events that are newsworthy and not about an unknown wannabe. The Daily Mail has the world at its feet listening and yet so often orates from the gutter.
Even the Times and the Telegraph are moving towards tabloid-type articles much to the ire of their readers.
My sister works for a well-known organisation with public membership which the Mail insists on trashing with monotonous regularity, alleging members are cancelling their subscriptions in droves because the organisation has been taken over by a ‘woke’ agenda. When I asked her just how many members had actually cancelled for these reasons, she just sighed, rolled her eyes and told me that a grand total of 2 members had cancelled for this reason.
They just blatantly lie about this stuff and their more diehard readership lap it up with relish.
The Daily Mail is responsible for brainwashing more people in this country than any other publication .
Thank goodness that on the whole the younger generation doesn’t read newspapers
Hopefully it’s days are numbered
I’ve always been a hard working person,a trained nurse, mum,wife and friend.I believe in honesty, integrity, respect for others and that no one owes me a living.Most others I come into contact with in my community express similar values .I have always read the Daily Mail .I can only conclude that the description of poisonous,odious,misogynistic ,
small minded ,is a mirror created from this constant hate filled poison coming from the hard left who see anything remotely attached to Conservatism as a reason to sprout yet more vitriol.It is very sad
As a former social worker, Lynne I also belive in the virtues of honesty, respect and integrity. However as a family we are increasingly dependant on the NHS. I am amazed that as a trained nurse you still support the tories despite the fact that they are destroying our NHS, together with other public services, although according to the latest YouGov poll your community are currently a minority in the country. Thankfully the astrology is also not favourable to this sham of a government and its Tory supporting Daily Mail. And no, I am not of the ‘far left’.
Lynne, my favourite politicians are Micheal Heseltine, Ken Clarke, and Edmund Burke. They were/are One Nation
Tories and a far cry from the repellant group today. The DM once backed Hitler and Oswald Moseley in the 1930s.
Truly despicable.
DM readers couldn’t tell the difference between Karl Marx and Marks&Spencer, and as for honesty, integrity
and respect for others, there are other right-wing papers that display such valued traits.
The DM isn’t one of them and never has been. You reap what you sow……
Stemming from incidents almost 30 years ago? I thought there were time limits to bring legal action?
The Daily Mail s a poisonous, odious, misogynistic scandal sheet whose comeuppance is fully deserved.
Why it still remains popular has always been a mystery to me, it would appear its’ small-minded attitude has gone
too far.
It is closer to Jeremy Kyle than Polly Toynbee, nobody under fifty reads its’ sordid content anyway.
Thank you, Marjorie. It’s a bizarre rag and the online version is rather like a journey through a mid-century sideshow on Coney Island. I can only think that Dacre and Truss are the best of friends because the editorial currently seems to be desperately trying persuade its readership that she is fit for office.
The DM online is a touch like a Victorian freak and horror show at times. They may well support Truss at the moment but are very capable of meeting themselves going the other way. They will flip in time.
Thanks Marjorie and VF – might it be worth finding a date for the MailOnline? I’ve got late 2003, but cannot find a date. They publish ‘stories’ and what passes for ‘news’ that’s exclusive to the online version of the DM, and have 70% of their web traffic coming from outside the UK – mainly US and Australia. They are almost a separate entity to the print version of the Daily Mail, which I think is the one being sued, or is it both of them? The online version has the utterly poisonous comments function, and vicious ‘sidebar of shame’. I wonder if they would consider throwing the print version of the DM to the wolves, and just continue with the hugely successful DM OnLine?
Astrologically, the Moon’s Nodes (the public?) were in Taurus in 2003-4. The eclipse cycle degrees are the same as we have now. The November 2003 Lunar eclipse was at 16 Taurus, and the May 2004 Lunar at 15 Scorpio, activating the print DM’s ‘birthday’ Sun. The print edition has now been ‘eclipsed’ by the online offering.
Here’s a quote from one of their former employees that sums up a few things about the nature of this hybrid for me:
“In 2015, James King, who left the MailOnline after a year as a reporter, said that the editorial model of the Mail depended on “dishonesty, theft of copyrighted material, and sensationalism so absurd that it crosses into fabrication”. King worked as a contractor, and declined a full-time job because he did not want to put his byline on his stories”
The nearest I can get is December 4 2003 when the Guardian wrote a piece about the Mail Online launching but no firm date. It probably beta tested before hand or maybe even after and may not have had a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
That date gives an over pushy, rather nasty, opportunistic Jupiter opposition Mars square Pluto and a Sagittarius Sun in aspect to Neptune and Jupiter. So feels about right.
Integrity and balance is not what shines through.
Thanks Marjorie. It’s amazing how the Victorian love of sensational media, ‘freak’ shows, and so on has endured. Although, sadly I do believe an element of this is part of human nature, and so very easily exploited for monetary gain. The Illustrated Police News (1864) was one of the first tabloids, for example, with Nodes appropriately in detective Scorpio. If you look at it online, you can see how it chimes with the darker corners and obsessions of modern times.
Looking at P T Barnum, famous showman, conman, and exploiter of others, (5 July 1810) – there’s a Sun-Mars conjunction in Cancer quincunx a Saturn/Neptune conjunction in Sagittarius, with Mars trine Uranus in Scorpio. Jupiter is sextile Pluto. So a similar feel.
From DMGT own corporate literature some years ago I got a time of just after 9am, 14th May 2004. This was the launch of the MailOnline brand. There had been a very scaled down version of the paper on the website before that with a few select articles, but it was nothing like the MailOnline.
They were very, very lucky considering how late to market they were. Any later and things might have been different
Just to add – 14th May 2004 was an interesting day in the newspaper industry –
-Piers Morgan was sacked from the Daily Mirror (fake Iraq torture photos)
-The Independant printed it’s final broadsheet, switching to tabloid – the first of a spate of broadsheets to do so.
The chart has Venus in Gemini, out of bounds along with Mars, nearing it’s station Rx point at 25 Gemini. Mars is about to station Rx at 25 Gemini a few weeks from now.
Two out of bounds planets – wildly succesful but “going too far”, maverick, not going by the rules. It became it’s own runaway monster – the out-of-bounds planets showing something that was never going to be too tied to the print title. The launch possibly has a VOC Moon, which makes sense as I remember that no one in the media business thought much of it at the time, thinking it was coming too late. It defied expectations in many respects.
Thank you both Tara and Marjorie! It’s an intriguing chart, with that chilly Mars-Saturn opposing the UK Sun. What’s fascinated me looking at this is Neptune in Aquarius square the Nodes in Taurus/Scorpio. Suggests such confusion and fantasy-prone influences in groups of people, or the creation of that. And the UK Mars in Taurus is conjunct the MailOnline’s North Node – some angry groups there, which could manifest in any direction. Then Neptune in Aquarius – internet dreams – is conjunct UK Venus in Aquarius. Hard to separate fantasies from reality there I think.
The connection between the Tory Party Sun and the MailOnline’s Sun you highlight, Marjorie, is also one to watch closely I think. UK Saturn (government legislation? established leadership?) at 23 Leo squares those, tr Uranus destabilises next year, as you say. I notice the MailOnline’s Mercury, 28 Aries, slots into Liz Truss’ Chiron 28 Aries opposition Uranus 28 Libra, with her Mercury 28 Cancer, and Saturn 23 Cancer. Pluto’s transit to all of that suggests a bit of a battle, to say the least. They will turn on her, and she may turn on them.
Tara, Thanks for the online date. Have added a piece above.
How curious that Harry would be sueing a paper run at that time by an astro twin of Charles….is this an example of transference