Parliament of Fowls

She is going to have to go before she takes Vulpes Vulpes down with her. Catching up with The Apprentice after Barcelona's stunning 2-0 defeat of Manchester United, and to be honest, the hat-trick needs to be wiping La Kirkbride off the map of Britain. What a 21 days it has been!

In other news, the aptly named Sir John Butterfill, MP for Bournemouth, has made a £600,000 profit after playing the property market and avoiding CGT, and Lynne Jones - a leftwinger, for Christ's sake - is under scrutiny for wallpaper and interior decorating.

For Kirkbride, The Hermit suggests she is now utterly isolated after her brother claimed on her expenses for adding an extra bedroom to her Bromsgrove mansion.

For Butterball, sorry, Butterfill, VI Swords, reversed, suggests that he had further ambitions which are now in abeyance after this scandal has laid him low.

And for Jones - VI Cups - which means that she might be spending more time with her furniture in future after she is called to account.

Labour's NEC Star Chamber finally meets tomorrow to discuss all these deselections for their party, so perhaps we will finally see some root and branch clearance of the deadwood on their backbenches and frontbench to put the Conservatives to shame.

I can't wait.

Simon Heffer, as we all know, is deciding whether to challenge Sir Alan Haselhurst, just like Esther Rantzen declaring her candidacy against her nemesis Margaret Moran. Presumably he understands that would cost him his Conservative Party membership, if indeed he has one. Owlperson can't tell me whether he does or not, but I'm looking forward to him declaring his candidacy and facing potential expulsion from the party that he may or may not be a member of - and if he is, and if he wins a seat, whether Cameron unctuously co-opts him as he did David Davis' campaign last summer.

So will he really do so? And how would he do? Let's ask the cards.

Past - Simon Heffer - The Star

Heffer has always seen himself as a potential politician, and his dislike of Cameron comes out distinctly in his articles (though unfortunately this makes him a useless barometer for my purposes of measuring the health of the party). Regardless, he has previously had faith in the political system, and has always played the game through the ordinary channels. Going it alone might be difficult, but at least he has a commitment to core Conservative values, and would not be a bad choice for Saffron Walden as a deep Tory heartland constituency. Owlperson is more convinced that he is at least genuinely ambitious for political office rather than Rantzen's egomania being a particular handicap when it comes to working with the machine.

Past - Sir Alan - Judgement, reversed

Sir Alan has evaded justice this time, and although he has fulfilled Heffer's initial request by paying back the £12,000 misclaimed money for gardening assistance, there is a possibility Heffer might still stand. Evasion of justice is a feature of a lot of these cases: the most effective judgement must be at the ballot box and those who doubt they will be able to look their constituents in the eye have already done the decent thing. However Haselhurst, once upon a time tipped to be the next Speaker, cannot outrun Judgement for long, and Heffer might still stand despite the money being paid back.

Present - Simon Heffer - Knight of Wands, reversed

Heffer might well be pulling back from declaring his candidature. It looks as if his initial condition on Haselhurst has been fulfilled, and the reversed knight signifies here the ending or abortion of a quest. The Wands, by their nature, are not serious cards; they are flimsy and superficial and Heffer largely proposed himself in order to bounce Haselhurst into repayment. He may still find a political outlet - and follow in the footsteps of Boris Johnson; Owlperson will not rule anything out - but for the moment it looks as if he will not actually need to stand.

Present - Sir Alan - The Lovers, reversed

Sir Alan is not liked, and can find cold comfort in Heffer's refusal, as yet, to declare his candidature. He may still find the going rough, and the constituency going sour on him even if he keeps his place as the official Conservative candidate, but this is now a matter for him alone rather than duel between him and a Tory-aligned independent.

Future - Simon Heffer - King of Cups, reversed

Never say never, Owlperson is warning. However, this card, while not particularly comely, suggests Heffer will involve himself more in active service and less in onlooking, and may have been symptomatic of a desire to step forward as a more active participant. The King of Cups is a deep, emotional commander; he is Cameron's significator in my old Four Kings leadership spread (Blair being the King of Wands, Brown the King of Pentacles, and the King of Swords the potential insurgent who might yet emerge to derail the cosy oligarchy in British politics this term round; one must always keep a wild card handy because predictions are often rather off...I have a collection of "famous last words" dating back to Kinnock and Thatcher fighting out the 1991 general election...), but here he is more active than Cameron, and more strident than the laid-back Water king. (Another King of Cups is Ken Clarke, another is Barack Obama, while Boris Johnson is a King-of-Cups in waiting if he can transform the buffoon image into genuine statesmanship.) Heffer goes from commentator to action-man, but may not actually stand in this particular seat at this particular time.

Future - Sir Alan - VIII Cups, reversed

Sir Alan remains sat on Saffron Walden until the next election, but may have missed his chance to go out with dignity, to recognise that his time has passed and stand aside in favour of a younger candidate without the taint of the Parliament of Manure. (Ordure! Ordure!) This card in this aspect represents a stubborn refusal to move on, move up, move out or move over, and he will pay the price in the end.

Result of candidacy decision - Page of Pentacles, reversed

A potential political career is nipped in the bud, and Heffer will find other soil in which to plant his further ambitions. He has ideals rather than ideas, and may not be famous enough in the outside world - unlike Rantzen - to have the profile needed to clean up in Saffron Walden. I may yet be wrong - this card also suggests he currently has a seed to plant and just needs to find the right soil, and Owlperson says if he had the decision to make over candidacies, he would offer Heffer a safe seat somewhere else because of his character and ability to do the job, say, of a culture minister, without the idiocy that came with Johnson's disastrous first foray into political office. So right person, wrong time.

Result of election in Saffron Walden - VII Cups, reversed

The illusions of the electorate as to the probity of their safe Conservative MP are shattered and they now have a choice between someone - and someone else. If Haselhurst lasts the distance to the election (clarifying for this, the X Cups, reversed suggests maybe not) then there is a possibility that he may not survive even if he is opposed by a candidate without the profile even of Simon Heffer. The seat is a target for independent attention, and there might be a vacancy for another independent to rock the boat sooner rather than later.

While I disagree with their stance, this interesting blog has some coherent criticism of the party system, particularly where it overlaps with the personalities of their current leaders. The system has been degraded over the past century, but there was never a golden age and the rise of the political parties has solidified the situation to the extent that David Cameron and Gordon Brown have been allowed to happen. The calcification of the political system has been down to personality, not policy or procedure.

Personally political parties are necessary in a modern democracy to maintain some coherency of purpose and government; many "non-party" systems (such as Kenya under Arap Moi) are or were unstable and puppets of the president who maintained a show parliament. Any system where independents congregate is bound to splinter into factionalism; conversely, parties who maintained a solid bloc in opposition to a dictatorship, such as Solidarity in Poland, are almost bound to break up on entry to a democratic system, since the aims of a mass movement in totalitarian societies differ from the need for government in a new democracy. In fact, in most of Eastern Europe parties which proliferated after the end of communism re-amalgamated into larger blocs. The old communist parties in Poland and elsewhere also re-established themselves as democratic movements - in Poland from 1997 to 2005 Leszek Miller and Aleksandr Kwasniewski, both activists in the old PZPR (Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnikow, or the Polish United Workers' Party), ruled in conjunction with the new Social and Liberal Democrat Party, or SLD. I don't believe there is any system in the world which is truly democratic where political parties are not a feature of the landscape.

If we are disillusioned and angry at the people currently in charge - as most of us are, my father having some choice epithets to throw at David Cameron's government-by-SMS plans last night - then the people in charge deserve prosecution and jailing, rather than the system redesigned to change the face of politics. The problem is Nadine Dorries and Julie Kirkbride, Margaret Moran, Alistair Darling and Shahid Malik, not FPTP, AV+, STV or the party system. Until this is acknowledged by all three party leaders then no justice will be done.

We do not need text messages to tell us who voted for what - we're not stupid. We just need honest people, probably a codified constitution, and most certainly an election held on our terms. Owlperson's idea is just to give us martial law and a hand-cast ballot paper: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, and SNP/Plaid Cymru in their own areas. No names, no symbols, no manifestos, no independents with an ego the size of Luton, no nothing. A new parliament elected on current boundaries would be established Put the current parties into the hands of people who would act as caretakers through a constitutional convention and series of fraud trials, with 20 years' parliamentary service and Cabinet-level experience a must (peerages may have to be revoked but that would be a small price to pay). Then we'd see what the people really felt.

If you think that is harsh for a few duck islands and a house full of dry rot in Southampton, I think it would help sort out this country's political system once and for all and take it out of the hands of the current people who want to twist it into their own shapes for their own gain.

The political card of the day is

VIII Wands, reversed

This is the card which intensifies and begins to direct momentum in one particular direction, but reversed it becomes difficult and tricky to control that momentum and allow it to work in one's favour. This means that however bad the situation, there is little currently to do with it than try and respond to the day-to-day revelations, rather than try and direct or channel it into useful and productive energy. This will undoubtedly escape the cynical minds of Cameron and Brown, but it adds to the pressure building up in the situation and has particular relevance for Julie Kirkbride and, Owlperson says, Nadine Dorries.

The Daily Mirror reports more about the long-running expenses scandal soap opera "Julie's Jollies".

La Kirkbride stands accused now of employing her sister as a secretary answering constituency post. This is not unusual - the only reason Derek Conway got sacked for it and that it was a killer blow for the leadership of Iain Duncan Smith in Betsygate was because the family members in question were on the payroll but did not do anything - but Kirkbride has snubbed a phone-in interview trying to get some sense of remorse and contrition from her, and although the sister does actually do some work in return for the £12k she gets from Julie, this is no longer a good enough explanation for the employment of family members. In the 1997 book Commons Knowlege, by Paul Flynn (accused last year of using his communications allowance to maintain his fabulous party political gossip blog, now bearing a disclaimer to the contrary), he warns against employing family, though it happens a lot and Owlperson says he has no objection to the idea because the salary is kept in the family. The only objection, obviously, is that money has been paid to people within the family that do not then go on to actually do any work, leading to the downfall of Derek Conway. Kelvin Hopkins MP, who shared Margaret Moran's constituency office with her when I worked there in 1998, employed his dragon-like wife who was very particular about everyone chipping in to the tea-making duties. I have no objection, so long as work is done.

But it looks like Flynn's "mature advice" not to employ family has become more solid disapproval and Kirkbride in obfuscating - and Cameron by association in holding off on axeing her and other Shadow Cabinet claimants - is only digging her grave and ultimately that of her timid leader who wants us to buy the fact that communicating results of votes to people's mobile phones is a coherent plan for parliamentary reform (it sounds more like the periodic and rather pathetic Blairite ideas to "increase turnout" by allowing us to vote in Tescos. I get enough mobile spam as it is (I must stop using the numbers in Chat magazine, it's my bill it's inflating) and I don't really want more rubbish from people who probably won't be getting my vote. If they want my vote, they have to actually put something forward that will help me in terms of (drum roll)...health, education and social security.

Sooooooo...a reading for Kirkbride and the effect of her continued corrosive presence on the Tory benches.

Situation - II Cups, reversed

The issue here is - I'm getting - "arrogance" and the inability to come to a conclusion which is of mutual benefit to Kirkbride and the party in general, including its leadership. The longer it goes on, the more corrosive it is, but the parliamentary demise of her husband Andrew Mackay means that if Kirkbride goes, the dynasty comes to an end. Here Kirkbride is trying to cling on when she knows she is ultimately doomed, and wrecking in the process her "marriage" to the party, and perhaps even her marriage to Mackay.

Appearance to the public of her continued presence - VI Pentacles, reversed

It is unfair of Cameron to be sacking the older members of his parliamentary party while keeping on someone with her nose so deep in a number of troughs. Duck islands notwithstanding, this presence gives the lie to Cameron's desire to clean out the party and show the leadership he is so proudly trumpeting, and this unfairness is likely to become toxic if Kirkbride does not do the decent thing and resign.

Appearance to the media of her continued presence - Ace of Swords, reversed

While she is still there, there can be no trumpeted Tory renewal, which would hand Foxy a sword with which to end the Prime Minister's reign and impose his own. Although the spectre of Howard Flight looms large (a decision which also exemplifies the reversed Ace of Swords, where Michael Howard took a hasty and over-agitated decision which left Flight without a seat as well as a position in the Shadow Cabinet, thus wrecking the delicate momentum the Tories had in 2005 to go further than they actually did), there is an opposite dynamic here which again suggests the media is not going to stand for any more obfuscation from Cameron. He needs to sack her or risk his crowing being seen as hollow, all too hollow.

Appearance to the grassroots Conservatives of her continued presence - IX Wands

Grassroots Conservatives are a fickle bunch, Owlperson tells me, but they are the wrong people to be dominating this issue. They are supporting Kirkbride for the moment, and struggling to close ranks around her. The more they do this, the more they damage their leadership and future prospects for government in the process, and this defensive card shows the steamroller is already heading for Bromsgrove just as it did for Bracknell in the end.

Internal issues: Cameron with Kirkbride - VII Cups, reversed

Cameron is actually under no illusion here that Kirkbride is damaging the party and his need to sack her is being hindered by a strong need to keep all his party crumbling in his hands. Removing the fantasies of complete control is one thing - he knows he doesn't have that over the grassroots, and he also may understand Kirkbride is a popular local MP - but his illusions are not stopping this process from coming to a conclusion. So what is?

Internal issues: Kirkbride with Cameron - X Cups, reversed

Kirkbride regards Cameron as a necessary evil, and a tool to get her into a position where she can form a governmental power base. This is not based on huge amounts of substance, more ambition and beliefs without back-up solidity. Nevertheless she needs him as much as he does not need her, and is clinging on because her ambition is greater than her husband's. The upright Ten would mean that her ambition is at least based in reality or potential reality. But the reversal of the card means that her opinion of herself and her importance is grossly inflated - and that she is now doing the party a lot more harm than good.

Internal issues: Parliamentary Party's role - Knight of Pentacles

The Parliamentary Party actually has at least a possible role in solving the problem; it is tentatively putting together an agenda of its own, whether to protect itself against the media or - in Owlperson's view - to expand its own power against the leadership which, like the Blairites of the 1990s but with far less substance to show for it, is continually abusing it and not delivering it what it needs to support the leadership. It, as the Knight, is able to assert itself only in response or reaction to Cameron, but it is learning to defend its interests and not to put up with flim-flam from above. In the 1990s, Labour had enough confidence to say to its recalcitrant backbenchers that Blair was worth putting up with, and the result was satisfaction and confidence. When I meet Tory backbenchers - or even Tory councillors locally - I am struck by a lack of confidence backing up their promises. This Knight therefore shows the confidence is growing - but in opposition and reaction to the leader.

Roots of the situation - King of Pentacles

Cameron has acted well in response to this situation - partly because of criticism in the Derek Conway incident 18 months ago where he delayed his action by up to 24 hours which brought some muted charges he had obfuscated and been indecisive. He learned from that. But the pressure is growing on him to do something genuine with this - sack a few Shadow Cabinet members, sack Kirkbride who is going completely off the rails (and she should take Nadine Dorries with her too). The situation reminds me of the story of the Golden Goose, where people are snared in by their own greed and look foolish. Cameron is Dummling, waddling along with a golden duck (in fact in some cultures the story is known as the Golden Mallard) - perhaps he needs to turn around, see the stream of followers all stuck to the bird, and release them. This card shows a will present - why won't he use it to genuine advantage?

Seeds of the situation - V Pentacles, reversed

The reversed Five shows a realisation of the real needs of this situation. The illusions dissipate and the correct course of action becomes obvious. What it entails is another matter, but hopefully this will be shown by the next section of the reading.

Advice to Kirkbride - The World

Take a hike, Julie. Although the World symbolises the pinnacle of someone's current existence, it also shows an ending. If she goes now, she might be remembered as a good MP who had a good innings. If she doesn't, she risks being dragged down with the rest of the rabble involved. Her husband has already lost his job, but she has multiple black marks against her name, and needs to completely call it quits before she too is bundled out of the window.

Advice to Cameron re: Kirkbride - VIII Pentacles

He is being urged to use her in this instance to create a genuine show of leadership. It is easy to sack superfluous backbenchers, but because Julie may be a useful member of his government later on, he is loathe to get rid of someone with her parliamentary and political experience (mostly negative - Owlperson points out she was the first to agitate against Howard both before and after the 2005 election, because she had negotiated a position with David Davis, who she backed in the abortive party coup of late May 2005). The problem is he needs to show that he is not favouring friends in this area. Kirkbride and Dorries, at least, should be jettisoned to show his ad hoc response to this crisis has real bite, before Labour's NEC Star Chamber reports and puts bureaucratic solidity onto their currently sclerotic response to their travails. If Cameron obfuscates any longer, the NEC will trump him, so he needs to work now to create a genuine direction for this party politcal game.

Warning to Kirkbride - The Tower

Her days are numbered, probably less than 3. She cannot win this battle and needs to jump before she is pushed.

Warning to Cameron re: Kirkbride - II Pentacles

The momentum is moving in Cameron's direction at the moment, but things are subject to change if he cannot do this for the political good of the people rather than his own self-interest. If he wanted Kirkbride for himself after the election, he should have called her in over this a long time ago. Things may turn against him, and his willingness to allow Kirkbride to run riot with his tacit support is moving the narrative on from how clever his initial response was to how limp-wristed his long-term ideas and pragmatic decision-making is. She needs to go - or things will move in Labour's favour again.

Going forward - Kirkbride - IV Wands, reversed

The stool is kicked out from underneath her. The Four represents tenuous structure, but this flimsy support is going and she cannot rely on anything to hold her weight. She will leave - and if this is not soon and swift a decision, it will bring the house down around her.

Going forward - Cameron re: Kirkbride - Queen of Swords, reversed

Cameron is playing with fire here - he is risking a lot on just one woman. He does manage to overturn her, but it is a decision that comes too late for credibility in "leadership". Meanwhile, she keeps on getting worse and worse. He needs to stop her causing his party grief and shame. But he is too indecisive to do much more than gradually withdraw support; therefore he is caught in a situation where conscious reason - represented by the Queen of Swords - dictates one thing, but his practical necessity dictates another. This is a difficult decision to make - can he make it in time?

General direction - VI Cups, reversed

The scandal has damaged the Tories' placid and gentle road to the finish, and they like Labour will be the ones to lose most from this. There is no going back to pre-scandal days - it represents an overturning of the status quo so much so that there is the risk of anarchy. Kirkbride could be dispensed with - so why isn't she? She upset the calm contentment of the party, so she should by rights leave. Why isn't more being done to remove her from Bromsgrove? Anyway, this upsets the balance in the party and moves it towards the difficulties it faced at this point in 2004. I can't say I'm unhappy with this - but all the same it is a crisis now of their own making.

Bromsgrove result - May 2009 - The Hanged Man, reversed

Julie Kirkbride hangs on, but perhaps only just. If there is difficulties at the Euro elections, her situation might be further weakened, as will Cameron's, but she manages to weasel it out.

Bromsgrove result - general election - Ace of Cups, reversed

The chance for renewal averted. The result damages the party and, all other things being equal, this has made the party unwilling to face up to the needs of their electorate - and they pay the price. It is not unlikely that a charismatic independent - again, all things being otherwise equal - could stand and depose Kirkbride herself. It is also a result which will have implications for the party as a whole.

Solution - Death, reversed

This is a dangerous situation; Death reversed intensifies the theme of transformation - an end and a beginning - into the deadly strike of a death with no resurrection afterwards. The situation is reaching a point where the party faces difficult choices but flunks the test - and this could get messy.

Outcome for now - V Swords

Something does happen to solve the problem,and put it to bed - but it is a negative, pyrrhic victory which just delays and intensifes the negativity of the situation. Labour at least has the excuse of using the NEC to arbitrate the resignations of MPs who have been caught out in this scandal; however with Cameron's ad hoc leadership, shirking the question of Kirkbride means that he cannot then change his mind; if he leaves Bromsgrove alone and decides only one half of the dubious duo needs to be taught a lesson in home economics, he has no way later of returning to the problem if, say, an independent of the stature of Esther Rantzen challenges Kirkbride. This needs solved, but it is not wholly resolved to the satisfaction of the Bromsgrove electorate.

Outcome long-term - IX Swords, reversed

The Nine upright is cruelty, ongoing terror and distress, but reversed it shows this distress coming to a head and being dissipated. There will be a solution, but it will be to neither Cameron's nor Kirkbride's favour.