David Cameron has pledged to reduce the power of Number 10, a Guardian article pledges today. He stops short of pledging proportional representation, which apparently (and I do agree with this) concentrates more power in political elites than in the hands of voters. particularly if lists of candidates are proposed (as in the European election system due to be used on 4 June) or electoral candidates directly voted for are "topped up" by the parties from pre-arranged lists according to
My old lecturer at the London School of Economics, Professor Brendan O'Leary (whose lectures were of course prefaced by "if you want more information on this subject, it's in my course textbook, you know, the one I wrote, available in all good academic bookshops priced £20") cited this example at the time at which Ron Davies was forced to stand down after the Clapham Common debacle, regarding the Welsh Assembly voting system. Members of the Assembly are elected in constituencies on an alternative-vote system (where the elector gets a second choice as well as a first; it is the system also used in the GLA elections, where I voted Labour first and second when Frank Dobson ran against Ken Livingstone in 2000), and "top-up" seats are allocated so the parties are represented broadly along the lines of proportionality. Alun Michael, proposed at the last minute as a leader for the Labour delegation to the Assembly*, would have to be shoehorned in to the top-up list. Brendan O'Leary confidently asserted that this ran the risk of Labour winning so much of the AV constituency vote that there was no room for any top-up candidates to be selected from their list, leaving Michael high and dry without a seat on the assembly. As it happened, Michael won his seat, only to be replaced by Morgan while I was in a beta-blocker induced haze and not watching politics after I stopped studying British politics after my first year at the School.
Cameron's proposals sound good on paper but I would rather let the tarot speak for me as I don't believe they are what the country needs right now (in terms of cleaning up the mess left by Hurricane Jacqui-Hazel) and I don't believe that he will be able to implement them because I don't think he is going to win the election on this ticket. If he wants to be just a figurehead that's fine by me (there are plenty of people I would rather actually ran the country; Foxy still has issues with the old Mary Jane and I'd rather he wasn't stoned when Obama comes asking him to press the button on Iranistan or somewhere like that) but I'm not going to vote for him anyway so I don't really care.
Situation in which Cambo finds himself today - The Fool, reversed
Cameron is looking dangerously like he is making things up as he goes along. The Fool does this well, upright, but reversed it begins to look as if these ideas came to him in a dream or a drug-induced haze; they are too insubstantial to hold his weight in government (or for him to be able to be trusted to enact) and they are being proposed at the expense of concentrating on the real issues behind the expenses scandal, or the real issues facing the country. Brown might look a bit pathetic when he tries to focus the debate back onto policy - he can't do that while the Torygraph is still bleeding my eyes with its crowing headlines - but Cameron cannot win an election without saying what he would do on health, education, the economy and so on, and yet he continues to bluff his way through with the tactic of the sorceror's apprentice - with predictable results predicted by this card.
Appearance of these proposals to the media - X Swords
This refers to the guillotine effect - the cutting off, brazenly, of government/prime ministerial power. But this is not a good card, and it brings with it not only the dramatic slicing off of someone's power, it also curtails the debate and is a card wielded against the querent, in this case David Cameron. Cameron looks like he is being tough, but this card suggests the media considers him now too bold, too dramatic, and too foolhardy to last the course of an election, even his snap poll that he so desperately wants.
Appearance of these proposals to the public - King of Swords, reversed
The King of Swords makes proposals everyone wants (even if he is not always in the position to do anything about it, and is consequently a card which accentuates the position of a good Leader of the Opposition) but this reversal suggests the public will not be satisfied with it and will continue to regard what is coming out of Westminster as a smokescreen. Cameron could probably do much more to clean out his Shadow Cabinet - Gove, Duncan, and now Hague with his party political spin expenses claim are under the finger of the press - but he has chosen to wildly churn out insubstantial ideas which in the long run will damage his claim to the throne even if they currently appear strong and masterful.
Internal appearance to the Conservative party - Ace of Wands, reversed
A tactic which is the exact opposite of what is really needed, and the party regards this as meddling rather than the brilliantly witty bon mot which Cambo hopes it might be. If Cameron had come out saying "Gove and Duncan will get the chop, I'm sacking Kirkbride and David Davis and anyone else who has had their fingers in the till illegitimately, including myself, and by the way I will pledge to raise spending on health and education year-on-year while pruning back other areas of spending which are superfluous to requirements (this, this, this, and this)", that would be the Ace of Wands upright. Sadly, anohter opportunity to regain standing missed on pointless procedural posturing.
Internal appearance to the Government - III Wands, reversed
The government cannot rest easily here either; it is impossible really for them to trump this and impossible for them to pull the debate back their way; this card upright is what happens when a comfort zone (the IV Wands) is broken and things begin to move forwards again; but reversed it means this movement is forcible and not in the querent's favour - the querent being the onlooking, lame duck (if you will pardon the dig yet again; ducks seem infused into our language, don't they?) government. The race is now to the bottom, and the government is playing catch-up with the only consolation being that Foxy is chasing his tail on this issue too.
Roots of the situation - Judgement, reversed
The sad thing really is that here we have a delay in actual justice being imposed on this horrific rabble, not least on those who deserve it most. The more this is delayed, however, the greater it appears as a farce waiting for anarchy to engulf it. Cameron is playing for time and hoping to beat the clock to the finish; but the more he tries to evade punishment, the more it dangles over all of our heads in the form of sheer, destructive, political anarchy. There are lessons here from the days of Allende in Chile - if none of the current lot really understand what is coming, then the worse it will be when it gets here. Who is to be our Pinochet?
Seeds sown by the situation - IV Wands, reversed
Illusory structure, in that Westminster and the media not involved in printing the actual story, think that this crisis can be overcome with electoral or political reforms to power, competencies, role of MPs or the method of their selection. This is the comfort zone for them - because they know nothing else - but this comfort zone is breaking down into the situation required for, in other countries, a coup or the takeover of a junta. It happened in Chile, and it happened in Argentina, and it happened in many other countries who thought they had strong political systems, but were wrong. It could happen here if no-one addressed the real problems - and no-one can, since they would risk prison themselves.
Advice to Cameron - King of Wands, reversed
Slow down and think about this, Cambo. Don't try and hijack something for your own cause that makes you look good now but ignores the real issue. The King of Wands delights in being first to the story, using words to create structures, promising jam tomorrow rather than delivering it today. In that sense, the reversed card urges Cameron to think before he speaks, to think on the consistency and coherency of his message rather than rushing to print with his next big idea. It is his leadership writ large, and belies an insecurity that ultimately may prove his undoing.
Warning to Cameron - Knight of Cups, reversed
Again, the above card from a different angle. Cameron is drunk on his own success, and his flimsy ideas mirror David Davis' fit of pique last summer: trying to change government policy by the political equivalent of seppuku when the right thingss to have done was, since the Conservatives opposed 42-day detention, to have worked with his own side to balance things once he became Home Secretary. He was the dashing Knight of Cups who kept appearing in spreads this time last year. This reversed card only intensifies that and makes this current over-reaction by Cameron seem overbalanced - work harder to get the substance right, and then people wouldn't be so disillusioned in general. Destroying systems because of bad people in charge will not do – people want the bad people prosecuted. Cameron is fiddling while Rome burns, and although the government is not doing that much either, politics is in meltdown and a simple cup of water will not put it out.
Direction for Cameron – The Hanged Man
The Hanged Man means, in a directional spread, that there is a need to take a step back and reassess the situation before plunging on. Cameron cannot really fix things until he is safely in government, and the powerful surge of anti-politics cannot be tamed by electoral reform or reducing the power of the Prime Minister – both non-sequiturs when the Chancellor of the Exchequer is charging his own tax returns to the Fees Office or someone is building a duck island in his personal lake and charging it to the public purse. This is not something that can be solved this way, and Cameron will take a step back and re-assess his own position – or, more likely, be forced to.
Direction for these proposals –Ace of Pentacles
The proposals themselves form the kernel of future reform anyway – Owlperson admits that he sees five-year fixed terms on the cards, a revamped 
expenses system which is much more stringent, a pay rise for MPs to allow them to do what they will with their own money (though not to the proposed £100,000, more like, he says, £80,000) and prime ministerial patronage reduced to the bare minimum, particularly in selecting those to go on to the Lords and those who join quangos and other bodies. He says Cameron will not be implementing them, because if he got to government he would ignore most of what he has said, either in the face of pragmatism imposed on him by the civil service (which Owlperson says makes it difficult for ideologues to get their hands any nearer power than, say, Neil Kinnock did) or because his own indulgent behaviour behind the scenes makes it unlikely that once in government he will oblige anyone who voted for him on the strength of these proposals. The next PM – and the winner of the next election – will be a former cabinet minister who, unlike Foxy or his “near ancestor” Blair, knows what it takes to balance the needs of government with the need to embrace public opinion. The tide will turn against Foxy, but not all of what he says need be discounted. Owlperson also notes that the defenestration of the Tory backbenchers in question – the Wintertons particularly – will make it much easier for the next Tory leader to control his party, and urges caution in saying that all Foxy’s new candidates would form a Cameron’s Comrades situation after the next election.
Solution – The Devil, reversed
The depth of the disfigurement of Parliament is now such that Ewan MacColl’s “Dirty Old Town” comes to mind:
I’m going to make a good sharp axe
Shining steel, tempered in the fire
We’ll cut you down, like an old dead tree
Dirty old town, dirty old town
The tree, Owlperson says, like much symbolism that appears in songs he considers prophetic of the end of the world, is pertinent here as well. This card therefore points to renewal through utter pain, which cannot be reversed simply by words.
Trend on the whole issue – Page of Pentacles, reversed
Those who are trying to fix this have as much hold on the issue as someone trying to nail the proverbial jelly to the ceiling. Instead of sowing the seeds of reform, they are (like Alan Shearer’s desperate attempts to keep Newcastle from relegation which, predictably, ended in failure over the weekend with a risible own goal by the aptly named Damien Duff) mismanaging decline and trying too late in the day to stop the ship from capsizing. Instead of the steady and strong King steering the ship of state, the current rabble – on both sides – are, again like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice that this card represents in its reversed aspect, involved in the chaos and cannot be relied upon to put it right to everyone’s satisfaction.
Outcome – Eight of Swords
This card represents, ironically, being trapped and although the bonds are loose and the gate open, no-one can see the way out. The Rider-Waite image is of a princess trapped in a circle of swords, hands tied and blindfolded, but waiting serenely there for her knight in shining armour. This image summarises our political class quite nicely – they are waiting for something which, when it comes, will burn her at the stake. And she is still waiting and hoping for it to go away. Poor her. Not.
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*(and subsequently deposed by the real leader of Wales, Rhodri Morgan, who has by rights done a superb job and proved, like Ken Livingstone, that the Blairite machine generally knew sod-all about who their electorates would accept, forcing Livingstone's grudging reacceptance into the Labour Party once it became clear that the Tories had a chance and an official Labour candidate in 2004 would dangerously split the vote)
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