Cherie Blair versus the National Secular Society

Cherie Blair, the barrister wife of Tony Blair, has come under fire from the National Secular Society. Sitting as a judge in a case where one Muslim broke another’s jaw in a fight over a place in a bank queue, she decided to suspend the man’s sentence because he was a religious person and had not been in trouble before. She added: "You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour."

The National Secular Society has complained to the Office for Judicial Complaints that her attitude was discriminatory and unjust, and suggests she might have treated a non-religious person less leniently.

I fully agree. Cherie Blair should not be let away with this. No doubt in her own head she is being liberal and open-minded, because the guy is a Muslim, whereas she is a Catholic. But actually she is putting religious people above those who are not, and this is prejudice and intolerance. (Maybe also it's a case of 'Nice Lion', the Blairs being a prime target for muslim extremists).

If anything, I would argue the case the other way around: many people take to religion because they can't handle living in an uncertain universe. With the false certainty that religion provides comes a sense of rightness and superiority that can be used to justify unethical actions. So if I were in Cherie Blair’s position, I would be asking how much this guy’s religion justified the violence that occurred when the other person ‘sinned’ by shoving in front of him in the queue.

Christianity and Islam both have a long history of righteous violence. The recent/current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a testament to this. In the case of Christianity, there is on the one hand the teaching of Christ, but there is the Old Testament as well, which Islam also accepts, with its eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth teaching.

So I find it ridiculous that Cherie Blair should raise religious people above secular people in this way. Islam, I guess, is her enemy’s enemy (secularism), so for now it is her friend.


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I don’t know much about what Cherie Blair is like, but her chart reveals a Virgo Sun and Leo Rising and Moon. The Virgo Sun gives her the analytical, flexible mind that a lawyer needs, and the Leo gives her the ability to perform that a barrister needs (her father was an actor). Pluto squared her Sun in the last few years, and part of the meaning of this must surely have been the more independent identity that was possible when her husband stepped down from being Prime Minister.

Jupiter is near the Ascendant (also square to Mercury and Neptune), and this gives her religion, but with Uranus also there, I am surprised her religion is so conventional. What I have noticed with the 1955 Jupiter-Uranus bunch is that while on the one hand they are often forward thinking, they also tend towards fanaticism and intolerance – a bit like Aquarians, who are Uranus-ruled. If you mix this in with the sense of rightness that a double fire sign gives, as well as the conservatism of Leo, then I think you have Cherie Blair. She also has a liberalism (Jupiter-Uranus) to her – she is, after all, the wife of an ex-Labour PM, and is famous for saying in reference to Palestinian suicide bombers: "As long as young people feel they have no hope but to blow themselves up, we're never going to make progress, are we?"

Pluto is squaring, and Saturn opposing, her MC this year, so I would expect her career to move forward significantly. She’ll probably be appointed as a full-time judge.