Not surprisingly, while getting rid of errant backbenchers and grandees, Vulpes Vulpes has only said that his own £22k dip into the public purse was within the rules. (I don't normally link to the Daily Fail or the Fail on Sunday, but surprisingly enough none of the broadsheets seem to want to touch this...yet.) So was the duck island, but Viggers had to go. The problem with this is first the absurdity of some of the claims, second the sheer amount of some of them (this fits into the second, less amusing category - playing with big stakes here) and thirdly that they ever were within the rules. Cameron is now properly tainted by this regardless of whether rules were followed. After all, Margaret Moran's claims were within the rules, as were many of Julie Kirkbrides'. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Short spread for this - the first barbeque of the season is about to get under way.
Situation with DC's mortgage - X Cups
The perfect solution. I feel this has more to do with the mortgage itself than with the actual issue of it making it into print. It solved problems for DC at the time and enabled the purchase of a house perhaps beyond what he could reasonably afford at the time, and thus balanced his need for grandeur with the reality of being a backbench Tory MP. He is worth £3m and his wife must be worth a lot as well - but this was funded through the public purse. Difficult questions arising from a happy and promising situation for him which were not anticipated at the time.
Question - Queen of Wands
The question now is reaction to it and how people will think of him further. He has been superficially strong during this scandal, making the right moves at the right time, but Conservative commentators such as Simon Heffer and Peter Oborne (in yesterday's Mail) take issue with what he has done than with what he has said. Heffer dismissed his pronouncements on government by SMS as fatuous. Peter Oborne, more worryingly, will not now vote Tory on June 4 - but for the Jury Team instead (the campaign launched by independent candidates whose PEB was firmly independent of any coherent policy sense about what these people really want from their government, presumably the whole point about politics); this temporary conversion is because Cameron will not sack his shadow cabinet colleagues such as Francis Maude or Michael Gove with the same determination as he has - rather fortuitously - cleaned out the bedblockers on the backbenches. (Owlperson remarks it is fortuitous for the next leader of the Conservative Party as well, as these people needed to go, but also acknowledges my concerns of foxy-powerbuilding in empty seats. Owlie responds that a lot of the people Foxy has approached to power-build with him turned him down.)
So here is the card of responding to a situation rather than being in control of it (as in the King of Wands). The question then is - the response to this revelation matters more than the actual revelation itself, as although I do get the image of a backdraft effect (the effect that a sudden waft of oxygen has on a raging fire) I am loathe to say that this really is Vulpendammerung quite yet, though I must note the Tens of Swordses that came out specifically for Cameron during the end of April and early May surprised me because they didn't seem attached to any particular event card except the equally opaque Wheel of Fortune. Now the situation hangs in the balance and depends on reaction, if any, to this situation rather than it directly being fatal for the poor Volpone.
Answer - The Chariot
A building of powerful, unstoppable momentum, and I get the feeling that this is inherently destructive, though it may not seem so now. The Chariot can be a powerful force for good. It can motivate people to achieve some sort of stability through perpetual motion, and through just going so fast the balance is maintained. I suppose this is what Cameron wants to do. He wants to leave Brown in a cloud of dust. But slow and steady often wins the race - the Chariot card is where wheels often come off, rather than stay on.
Direction - Ace of Cups reversed
The good drains out of the situation before too long. There is a certain susceptibility hanging round all MPs. Brown's cabinet is damaged beyond repair, probably at least for Jacqui Smith and Hazel Blears. Cambo's shadow cabinet cannot sustain their assault on backbenchers if they too are seen to have abused the same rules. The looming elections on June 4 suggest difficulties - to put it mildly - for all major parties which cannot be written off by street-smart journalists talking about "revelation fatigue", as if they can somehow now put the genie back in the bottle before it really destroys the whole place. The cup to me looks as if it is about to spill something more toxic yet, and that for the moment the lid is still on. For how long it can be inverted yet defy gravity, I don't know. But it can't do so forever.
Solution - V Cups reversed
The Fives represent some sort of imbalance, some sort of difficulties, and some sort of grief or grievance. The Five of Cups is a card where something is mourned, but something, out of sight, still remains for the person involved. This inversion means that the loss is greater than that which is still there - and that which is still there has too, in a way, been lost or squandered, even without the person knowing it was there. (The Rider-Waite image is of a person crying over spilt milk from three cups, with his back turned on the two remaining cups.) Here the solution is painful, as there are no resources, no evident alternatives, to fall back on, but something must be done to remove the grief and anger in the situation and mourn the inevitable loss.
Outcome - The Star
For now there is hope that this might pass Cambo by in some way, that he will be judged not guilty in claiming this money and that it will not catch light. For the moment at least there are no intense questions to be asked - the flames lap a bit higher round Eleanor Laing, but since she is Shadow Cabinet - she'll survive in office. In treating the situation as harmless, DC may calm it down and turn it into something which is not discussed as intensely, but if the worst comes to the worst he is no longer a paragon of virtue and can no longer protest any serious innocence while these questions remain unanswered without a mea culpa - because we are talking morals here, not legalities, and because he yesterday called for those with dodgy mortgage claims to be investigated by Scotland Yard. The brown stuff has not yet hit the fan but it is still looking questionable.
