Oh Darling, what have you done?

On 20 Nov 2007 at 15:30, Alistair Darling began his speech to MPs announcing the loss of 2 CDs contain data on 15 million British citizens: names, birth dates, addresses and bank details. It’s been the mother of all cock-ups, and it came into the public domain just as Mercury in Scorpio was beginning to square Neptune in Aquarius. The electronic (Aquarius) loss (Neptune) of private (Scorpio) information (Mercury). The Scorpio Mercury also reflects the power to misuse this information if it falls into the wrong hands. I mean, imagine if an astrologer got hold of it. He’d spot your Neptune-Sun transits, and know when to steal your identity. And then under Neptune-Venus he'd steal your money. Or your wife.


The story is still developing. To start with we were assured it was just a junior civil servant who’d made the cock-up, in clear breach of the rules. But with Mercury in Scorpio square to Neptune, there cannot but be a cover-up. And the square won’t be exact until late Saturday. So there is more to come. At present, claims are being made about an email involving a senior civil servant. And there has also been a story that improvements to basic security were not made on the orders of a senior civil servant to save money – in particular, the ability to remove inessential information from the CD, which isn’t exactly rocket science.

Alistair Darling is having a difficult time of it, particularly after the Northern Rock meltdown, when we had the first run on a bank in over 100 years. The government has had to bail them out to the tune of £23 BILLION so far, in order to maintain confidence in the banking system. Personally I think Alistair Darling probably did the best that could have been done with that one, but that isn’t how public perception works. You start to look accident prone, and if this is happening to the most senior minister of all (bar the PM), it shakes the whole government.

Charles Clarke had to go as Home Secretary a couple of years ago, not because he was doing a bad job, but because he inherited a department in sore need of an overhaul and updating, and he had to take the flak for the inevitable cock-ups that occurred.

I think a lot of it is happening because we are moving into a new age where a lot more can be done with information, and the public expects the government to be fully on top of the new possibilities and all the new security measures required. And they aren’t.

Alistair Darling was born 28 Nov 1953. If you Google his birth date at the moment, you don’t get anywhere, because all the results are telling you how he’s lost everyone else’s birth dates! He has Sun at 6 Sagittarius square to a Virgo Moon. So Saturn in early Virgo is giving him a hard time, and will continue to do so for a while yet. But he is probably learning from it, so let us hope the public allows him to learn from his/others’ mistakes.

He also has Venus at 21 Scorpio square to Pluto at 25 Leo. Power (Scorpio) over other people’s (Scorpio) money (Venus)! An interesting aspect for a Chancellor to have. And a difficult one, with that square to Pluto – he can easily get disempowered dealing with other people’s money. And unfortunately for him, this is exactly what has been happening, reflected in Neptune currently hard aspecting his Venus-Pluto, and which will continue doing so for the next couple of years.

So it may be that however hard he tries, these sort of unfortunate events are going to keep happening, and he will gradually lose credibility – and so will the government. Partly because he is the Chancellor, but also partly because Gordon Brown is not surrounded by ‘big-hitters’ who can take the blame when things go wrong: it all comes back to him.

New Labour has been in power since 2 May 1997, and it was 3.17am when victory was declared. The Solar Return for this year is very difficult, with every planet being part of either a t-square or a Grand Cross. In particular Venus, the planet of popularity, is in a t-square with Uranus, Pluto and Mars: not very auspicious. And Labour has again begun to do consistently badly in the polls, just like before Brown took over as PM.

However, if we look at next year’s Solar Return, Venus is very favourable: in Taurus, on the DESC (both places it likes to be) and in a Grand Trine with Saturn and Pluto! It looks like the government is going to get popular again, and it will be both earned (Saturn) and empowering/renewing (Pluto). Neptune makes its final exact square to Darling's Venus in January, so the worst may soon be over for him, if we are to believe next year's New Labour Solar Return.